IGTV Instagram

Unless you’re living under a rock, you’ll know that Instagram IGTV launched this week and everyone is already jumping in on it.

At The Quick Brown Fox, we just launched our own IGTV channel with a nice handy little tutorial video with all the tips and tricks you’ll need to get you started on this new tool. You can watch our video here.

As with every social media platform, it’s important to have a strategy and a little think as to how you’ll use it to benefit your brand and reach the perfect audience but for now, let’s just have a quick glimpse into how it works.

Getting ready for Instagram IGTV:

First, make sure you have the very latest version of the Instagram app installed on your phone. It may be that even after updating you will have to open & close the app in order to see the IGTV icon at the top right corner next to the paper dart.

At first, you’ll be asked to create your channel. No worries, it sounds worse than what it is, it’s really just a series of very simple to follow on-screen prompts.

Once you’ve done this just tap your avatar to start uploading videos directly from your camera roll by either tapping the + symbol on the right or where it says (duh) “upload video”.

Choose any video, it should be longer than 15 seconds and up to 10min long. Bear in mind that IGTV has been created with vertical videos in mind. Instagram reckons that vertical is the natural way in which people watch videos on their phone. So there! Vertical videos! Consider this when you’re shooting your content. Make sure you follow some basic guidelines to create good quality videos.

Remember to add a nice title and a relevant description. Make sure you use of this feature well, because (wait for it…..) you can add hashtags AND clickable links pointing to wherever you like!. Think your blog, website, anywhere!. This is possible even if you have under 10K followers, unlike the “swipe up” feature on insta-stories which is only available to accounts with more than 10K followers.

As always, chose a nice cover, Instagram IGTV is a visual platform after all!

IGTV main features:

Something we really love is that IGTV  is available to both business and personal accounts. This could be a game changer for some Instagram users.

Once you have set up your channel and have finished uploading the first video, your followers will be able to visit your IGTV channel directly from your IG profile by tapping the IGTV icon to the left of your highlights. Your new channel displays prominently, so again, make sure you take full advantage!.

Your followers can like, comment and share your IGTV content in the same way they interact with grid posts and insta-stories. But here’s another possible game changer: as the channel owner, you can grab a link to your video and share it in other platforms to direct traffic to your shiny new IGTV channel.

Have fun!