Instagram is really trying to compete in the video space with YouTube and IGTV is their most recent feature to give users the ability to post long form video content on the platform.
We knew that Instagram strongly rewards the use of IGTV so we tested out this theory by playing into the algorithm with optimizations and best practices.
The graphic below shows 6 of the most recent regular video posts on Kings Avenue Tattoo‘s Instagram.
These videos are various on going content “series” and average 4,623 views and 7 comments per post. Keep in my Kings Avenue has 103K followers which gives us an engagement metric followers-to-views ratio of 4.4%.
Anywhere between 3% ~ 5% is a solid zone to be in so we can see that the content is resonating with the audience.
As you may already know, regular video posts need to be less than 1 minute long in length. In order to post a preview from IGTV onto the main feed, the video needs to be longer than 1 minute.
We hacked the game a little bit by creating slightly longer video edits of the same series so that we can use the IGTV feature. For example, the videos of the artists tattooing used to be a minute long or less, but we started editing them to be longer than a minute so that we can upload it on IGTV and post a preview on the main feed.
Below are the results we got from the next 6 video content we posted but all through IGTV.
The IGTV videos averaged 18.2K views and 27 comments per post. This brings our followers-to-views ratio for IGTV posts to 17.7%.
Before we break down the results, you need to keep in mind that the style of video content were the same for the regular video posts as well as IGTV posts. Also, just posting the videos to IGTV will not bring in these results, a preview of the video has to be posted onto the main feed.
When compared to regular video posts, IGTV posts received a 26% increase in comments and a 25% increase in views. These are significant results that tell us whenever possible, we should upload the video to IGTV then post a preview to the main feed whenever possible.
This does not mean that you should not post regular videos. Great content beats any algorithm so a great video can perform extremely well even if it is not an IGTV video. You do need to use your judgement on this, but if you want more views on average, it is a smart bet to take advantage of IGTV.