The Evolution of IGTV
IGTV is evolving to Instagram video!
We all know that video content is king when it come to social. Across platforms, video posts receive much higher engagement levels and reach a larger audience.
On the 6th of October, Instagram announced it will remove the IGTV area of profiles, in favour of a more cohesive ‘Instagram video’ page. This is where you’ll find all video posts on the site. That means that your profile homepage will be exclusively images.
The platform is continuously evolving. Consequently, small businesses may struggle to keep up with user trends.
You can find our advice on how to use Instagram correctly to grow your business on our blog including how to make the most of video content.
So, what happened to IGTV?
IGTV was rolled out in 2018, offering a social media alternative to websites like Youtube. Just two years prior, Instagram stories were rolled out to rival Snapchat’s core feature.
Notably, Facebook set a trend of bloating apps with every possible feature. It monitors users’ activity trends. It then streamlines its features accordingly.
Did Facebook wait too long to transform its video-sharing feature?
Although Facebook remains the most dominant social platform in terms of user numbers and Ad spend, TikTok has quickly overtaken as the the most used video-sharing app. This year we watched as TikTok Becomes the First Non-Facebook Owned App to Reach 3 Billion Installs.
As Instagram’s biggest rival with an addictive infinite scroll and a lightning-fast algorithm, Tiktok famously drills down to users’ behaviour categories and personality types.
Meanwhile, Instagram updates have bloated the app with endless new features. From Highlights to Reels and Live Streams, its complexity might have turned some users away.
Whilst the two apps have vastly different layouts, their audiences are not dissimilar. TikTok has a much larger audience of 10-19 year-olds, whilst Instagram is primarily a young adults’ app.
But overall, Instagram’s biggest user demographic is 25-34-year-olds and over 50% of Tiktok users are under 29 years old.
With the new simplified video format being rolled out this month on Instagram, will users be lured back or will TikTok continue to prevail?