Okay so you've decided to jump into IGTV. Yes! Congratulations, we need more awesome content on IGTV. But now what? How do you get people to watch your videos? Instagram is doing their best to promote you to your current followers, buuuut… if your followers are “just numbers”, and not an engaged audience who are keen to hear what you have to say, they're not going to be interested in your videos. And if they're not interested in your videos, you're likely to either get muted or unfollowed on Instagram. Ouch! Either way, that means less views. While an engaged and authentic following is a whole other topic we'll cover in another post, today we'll talk about how to promote your IGTV videos to get more views. AND the bonus is you'll get more subscribers and Instagram followers, thanks to IGTV. And of course that means getting your message and your business out to more people. So let's go!
How to Promote Your IGTV Videos to Get More Views
Use Facebook to Promote your IGTV Videos
First thing you want to do is to always share your videos to Facebook. Facebook owns Instagram, and they desperately want to help boost the number of people watching IGTV. Because of that, they make it super easy not only to share your videos to Facebook, BUT your videos are also shown natively on Facebook. That means when your Facebook fans want to watch your videos, they can watch them directly on Facebook. They don't have to click away.
TIP: to get the best out of this feature, you need to click on the “share to Facebook” button at the time of uploading your video to IGTV. Sharing with a link to Facebook after you've uploaded means your followers need to click away from Facebook to see your videos.
Use Insta Stories to promote your IGTV Videos
Just like you see teaser trailers for movies, you can create a little trailer on Insta Stories to promote your IGTV Video. Now this doesn't have to be difficult or technical. You can easily create an image on Canva to let people know you have a new story, or you can simply do a super quick and casual video letting people know why they should watch your video.
Now for the cool part! Instagram let's your Insta Story viewers “swipe up” on your Insta Story to go straight to your IGTV video. Swiping up used to be only for Instagram accounts that had 10,000+ followers. But for the purpose of promoting IGTV, anyone can use the “swipe up” feature on their Insta Stories in order to direct people to their IGTV videos.
How to link your IGTV videos to your Insta Stories:
1. Create your Insta Story by either uploading a video or an image which talks about the video you want to promote
2. Click on the little “link” icon at the top of your screen (as shown in the image below)
3. Click on the “+ IGTV Video” link (as shown in the image below)
4. Your videos will now appear on your screen. Choose which of your videos you want to promote and tap to select.
5. Upload your Insta Story
That's it! So easy.
Use Instagram Live to promote your IGTV Videos
This one you'll use a little differently to Insta Stories. With Instagram Live, I would do the regular live video you're planning on, but also talk about your latest IGTV video. Maybe the topic you cover on IGTV goes a bit deeper on a point you make on your Instagram Live video. In this case you can do a “call to action” on your live video to let your audience that they can hear more about this topic on your latest IGTV video. It's kind of like YouTubers add a link in their current video, to promote another video to keep people watching.
Promote Your IGTV Videos to your Email List
Okay, so this one might seem a bit strange. Why would you want to promote your IGTV videos to your email list? I mean, you already have your audience on email which is the end result that most business owners are looking for. Here's three great reasons:
1. Always #1: you're adding value to your email audience. You're giving them some more valuable content to help them with their needs.
2. It gives you another opportunity to connect with your email subscribers.
3. You want to show Instagram you are doing your best to promote IGTV. More people coming in to your IGTV channel, will help you with the IGTV algorithm we just know Instagram is going to spring on us soon.
Promote Your IGTV Videos on Pinterest
Yes! You can promote your IGTV videos on Pinterest. Okay, at the moment it's not as easy as just clicking on the Pin-It button, but it's still doable. Here's how to Pin your IGTV Videos on Pinterest. Oh, and this can be phone on your phone or computer.
1. Create a pin in Canva, Pickmonkey, or your preferred graphics app
2. Go to your IGTV channel to copy your link. If using your phone: choose the video you want the link to and tap on the three dots at the bottom of your video. This will give you the copy link option. On your computer, go to Instagram, click on your profile and select “IGTV”. Click on the video you want to promote and copy the URL.
3. Go to Pinterest and click on the red “+” sign at the top right corner of your screen (as shown below)
3. Drag & Drop or Upload your image as shown below. And paste the link/URL to your video below it.
4. Upload your pin and choose the Pinterest Board you want to put your pin in.
That's it! All done. Now you can go ahead and re-pin that video to your Pinterest Group Boards too for maximum exposure.
Promote Your IGTV Videos to Twitter
Tweet something about your IGTV video topic that will entice your Twitter followers to want to view your video and add a link. Even better, create an eyecatching graphic to promote your video to Twitter. Not a lot of Twitter followers? That's okay, make sure you use your Twitter Hashtags to get some attention.
Promote Your IGTV Videos on Forums
Maybe you're on Reddit or other traditional groups and forums. And no doubt you're on more than a few Facebook groups. These are great places to promote your videos. Before you go jumping in though, a word of advice: no one likes reading promotional posts. When I say promote your videos on groups, I mean in a very natural and helpful way. And only IF the the rules of the group allow it. And only IF you already actively participate in the group without promoting yourself.
Here's two genuine ways to approach this (again, if it's within the group rules that you can post outside links).
1. Take note of conversations that have been happening lately. If you find that people have been taking about a subject that you've created a video on, then go ahead and start a post by saying that you've noticed a lot of questions around a certain topic, and you're sharing a video you create which they might find helpful.
2. Watch the conversations as per usual and participate genuinely. When a post comes up where your video would be helpful, then add a comment saying that you have some helpful thoughts on that subject, and link to your video.
Promoting your videos in group in this way, is the same as a natural conversation with a friend where you recommend something or give advice. Whereas jumping in and promoting without conversation, is a lot like that pushy sales person, that we just know cares about nothing else but pushing a sale. No one wants to be that person.
So there you are! Lots of options for you to promote your IGTV videos. Want to take it one step further and find out how to really attract your audience on social media – no matter what platform it is? Book a call with me and we can talk about making your social media work for you, to bring in more clients.
The post How to Promote Your IGTV Videos to Get More Views appeared first on Angela Sargeant.
