What is IGTV?
Have you been left confused by the new icon that has appeared at the top of your Instagram feed?
Read here for an insight on Instagram’s newly launched feature:
IGTV (InstaGramTeleVision) has brought new opportunities for brands and creators to produce a new style of creative content.
The icon appears at the top of the Discover page on Instagram but also has its own stand-alone app, you can record and upload directly from either app or you can upload existing files from your phone or from a camera, as long as it fits the 16:9 portrait format.
Instagram has brought in a large team of creators who will bring their own audiences and already understand the raw appeal of social video content over large production TV broadcasts.
Instagram’s venture to shift viewer behaviours has involved meeting with creators in an attempt to encourage them to create video content closer to the 10-minute mark than the 60-second limit currently in place. In fact, IGTV offers the ability to upload videos that span up to 60 minutes in length.
Instagram’s CEO Kevin Systrom said at the official launch that ‘the way we watch videos is out of date’, he claims that we watch videos in a format intended for a wide screen television on our smartphones, which results in either holding the phone in portrait mode and watching a small square in the middle of the screen or awkwardly holding the phone to the side to watch videos in full screen, this is why IGTV will primarily display videos as portrait in a 16:9 format.
But how will entertainment be perceived within a 9:16 frame?
Instagram is well equipped to handle creator communities – the only challenge that could arise is whether or not long-form video can flourish in a vertical format. For shorter videos, it’s never been an issue but people aren’t used to sitting down and watching an hour-long video or show in portrait mode. Only time will tell how successful Instagram will be with this venture.
As for Facebook, who own Instagram, they have also been trying to push long-form video over short form by cracking down on ‘cheap videos’, they have issued a warning that videos such as memes, gifs and short looping videos will be de-prioritised in on the news feed over the next few weeks. So, if you’re hoping to keep your video posts relevant, think long-form!
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