Digital MarketingInstagram video marketing strategy: How to improve based on user behavior

Instagram video marketing strategy: How to improve based on user behavior

A new survey reveals user behavior of Instagram users in the US, UK, and France. How can brands shape their IG video marketing strategy accordingly?

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms for users and brands. Here’s how to revisit your Instagram video marketing strategy to improve ROI.

Instagram video content has been on the rise over the last couple of years and more brands are eager to create videos that meet their objectives. From in-feed videos to IGTV, there are many different ways to make the most of video on Instagram to reach your target audience.

Wibbitz has launched a report on the latest video trends on Instagram surveying 1000 respondents from the US, UK and France to discover their behavior habits and what we can learn from them.

We are looking at the findings and the five main takeaways we can include in our Instagram video marketing strategy.

Using user behavior to improve your Instagram video marketing strategy

Learn more about your audience

It is important to follow the latest trends to revise your Instagram marketing strategy. There are many times that our tactics are based on assumptions about our target audience so any insights on what they want and how they use the platform are more than welcome.

According to Wibbitz’s report, 73% of the respondents are using Instagram. A closer look at the demographics indicates that almost all GenZ-ers are on Instagram (95%) with millennials following closely (86%). Moreover, it’s still important to remember that Instagram is not just for younger users since 69% of Baby Boomers and 66% of GenX are also using the platform. Thus, when crafting a marketing strategy, it’s important to leave out assumptions on the type of content and ads that would work better for your products.

breakdown of people using Instagram, to inform brands' Instagram video marketing strategy

It is also estimated that the respondents are spending an average of 1-2 hours per day on Instagram, while they’re spending 69% of their time watching videos. Videos can be very engaging, which means that brands have a great opportunity to stay close to their supporters through the video content.

Create different types of content

Video content on Instagram can work in different formats and placements. From short videos in Stories to longer videos on IGTV, there are many opportunities to explore.

Feed videos are still the main placement for users to watch videos (91%) while Stories are on the rise (83%). IGTV may be the last option (44%) but it’s still a percentage that you cannot ignore especially when you want to share an important video that’s longer than a minute.

When it comes to the most popular types of video content and the winners are:

  • How-to-tutorials (80%)
  • Behind-the-scenes (66%)
  • Interviews (62%)
  • News coverage (61%)
  • Creative inspiration (59%)
  • Motivational posts (49%)

The videos type that you’ll ultimately pick depend on your brand’s goals and audience but it’s still useful to experiment with various ideas to find out what works best for your account. For example, how-to-tutorials should not necessarily be used on B2C brands. In fact, it can be an interesting approach to try out new ideas to find out what your followers prefer.

What’s also interesting is to look at the type of brands that users tend to follow on Instagram. Food and drink brands are leading with 40% of users following them, while travel (33%) and music (29%) are following. If your brand is in these industries then you have an advantage when trying to stand out. However, you may also have a bigger competition, which means that creativity and engagement are even more crucial.

Make your brand easy to find

If your main objective on Instagram is to gain new followers, then it’s important to be able to make your brand easy to be found. Wibbitz found out in their report that 26% of Instagram users follow new brand accounts at least once a month through the Explore page. A good way to benefit from this tactic is to keep creating interesting content that would be considered relevant enough for your target audience to be placed on the Explore page. The algorithm is analyzing a user’s interests and the types of accounts that they’re following to showcase similar content.

Moreover, 18% of Instagram users follow new brand accounts at least once a month through hashtags. This is a great confirmation on the importance of using hashtags on Instagram. You don’t need to add 50 irrelevant hashtags to your posts to stand out. Make sure you spend some time researching the most relevant hashtags that would help you reach new followers who would possibly follow your account.

Experiment with new engagement opportunities

It can be challenging to maintain or improve engagement with your existing followers. Instagram is still one of the most engaging social media platforms and it’s important to add an engagement strategy to your tactics.

Instagram’s algorithm is paying attention to your engagement rate to determine whether your content will show up to a larger percentage of your followers. You want to make sure that you’re creating content that’s appealing enough to cause some sort of reaction (like, comment).

Luckily, videos can help you build your engagement rate. You can start conversations with interactive videos but you can also master Instagram Stories to boost your engagement. There are many ways to improve your engagement through Stories with polls, questions, quizzes and user-generated content. All you need is the creativity to try out new ideas that will put your followers at the forefront of your strategy.

Increase sales by focusing on the right call-to-action

Instagram is not just for awareness and engagement anymore. It is estimated that 31% of users have made a purchase directly after watching a video ad on Instagram. Increasing sales and conversions on Instagram is one of the most popular goals for brands. Instagram has actually made it easier to capitalize on a successful presence through clickable products and video ads that make a purchase easier.

There are two great ways to add a call-to-action that will turn Instagram followers into customers:

1. Drive traffic with swipe-ups and link-in-bios

If you’re still starting small (no more than 10k followers) then the most common way to involve a call-to-action to your posts is to re-direct your followers to the link in your bio. 22% of users access a website through link-in-bios from Instagram to learn more about a specific post or account. This is a great percentage for small businesses who want to understand Instagram and how to grow their account while boosting their sales.

Once you reach at least 10k followers, you are also able to create swipe-ups in your Stories so that you make the call-to-action even easier. It’s interesting to see that 28% of users access a website through swipe-ups from Instagram to learn more about a specific post or account.

You still need to build awareness and engagement to make it easier for your followers to turn into customers. Simply sharing call-to-actions without a set strategy will not lead to the same success than a perfect balance between all types of posts.

2. Increase sales with in-feed video ads

It is estimated that 11% of users access a website through in-feed ads from Instagram to learn more about a specific post or account. If you want to boost your sales in a more direct way than the link-on-bio, you can create in-feed video ads that have a very clear call-to-action. You can lead users to a landing page or even a ‘shoppable’ page that allows them to buy their favorite products as fast as possible. It can be a great tactic to improve your Instagram ROI provided that you analyse your target audience to be more strategic with your budget.

What’s next

Instagram’s popularity is expected to grow at even higher levels. Brands should be ready to jump on the latest trends to maintain a successful strategy. Video content is a great way to reach a new audience or even to drive new sales.

As Zohar Dayan, CEO and Co-Founder at Wibbitz, says:

“As Instagram continues to become audiences’ preferred destination for instantly gratifying video content, it’s critical for brands and publishers to build an Instagram video strategy that is both flexible and scalable – to easily adapt to new innovations in video, and leverage its existing capabilities to their fullest potential.”

It’s time to invest more time and money on Instagram video marketing in a more strategic way that will help us scale our strategies serving the right content at the right time to the right people.

Subscribe to get your daily business insights

Whitepapers

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

Whitepaper | Mobile US Mobile Streaming Behavior

5y

US Mobile Streaming Behavior

Streaming has become a staple of US media-viewing habits. Streaming video, however, still comes with a variety of pesky frustrations that viewers are ...

View resource
Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups

Whitepaper | Analyzing Customer Data Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics for Media Groups

5y

Winning the Data Game: Digital Analytics Tactics f...

Data is the lifeblood of so many companies today. You need more of it, all of which at higher quality, and all the meanwhile being compliant with data...

View resource
Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its people

Whitepaper | Digital Marketing Learning to win the talent war: how digital marketing can develop its people

2y

Learning to win the talent war: how digital market...

This report documents the findings of a Fireside chat held by ClickZ in the first quarter of 2022. It provides expert insight on how companies can ret...

View resource
Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy

Report | Digital Transformation Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Experience Economy

4w

Engagement To Empowerment - Winning in Today's Exp...

Customers decide fast, influenced by only 2.5 touchpoints – globally! Make sure your brand shines in those critical moments. Read More...

View resource