Instagram videos are this week’s nonprofit adventure topic. But, if you missed it, you’ll want to take a read at last week’s post. It talks about the three ways that you can begin to leverage Instagram. Instagram is an excellent social media tool. Your nonprofit should be using it to promote your organization. The reality is that a single compelling photo is worth a thousand words and video is even better. Nonprofit Instagram videos provides a great chance to double engagement with your followers.
The most successful charities are those that are embrace digital tools. They communicate and engage with the public and their supporters with these platforms. Instagram has a suite of features that you can use for video, which include the following:
- Instagram Live enables you to video in real-time, which is like what you can do with Facebook Live.
- IGTV allows your nonprofit to upload long-form videos.
- Instagram Stories is a feature that permits your nonprofit to upload as many photos and videos as you’d like, which disappear after 24 hours.
Instagram Videos
Like Facebook Live, you can get on Instagram and have your followers see your video in real-time. It’s a great way to drum up support and interest when you want to promote something special. If people miss it, they also have a chance to see your Instagram Live video post-recording. The following are a few ideas for making sure that you make the most of Instagram Live:
- If you’re looking to promote a program or fundraiser, market it in advance. Tell your followers to tune-in to your Instagram Live at a specific date and time. It will provide urgency and will help drum up interest to what you have to say.
- If you get a lot of interest during your Instagram Live video, you have the chance to gain new viewers. You’ll also increase engagement by having your video featured on Instagram’s Explore Page.
- On social media platforms, you can have people engage with you in real time with comments. If you want to turn this function off, you can do that, if you’d like. Remember, videos where people can engage in real time, are much more engaging. So, it’s not recommended you turn off comments.
- Provide people who see your Instagram Live video broadcast something fun and engaging. Give away merchandise. It could be cool t-shirts, books or other merchandise of interest to them. If you know certain people will be attending, give them a shout out.
IGTV
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. It’s second to Google because people want to see videos. They love them, and video has a much higher level of engagement. Instagram knows this, and that’s the reason why they created IGTV. IGTV provides you a chance to have your followers view long form and vertically shot videos. Those videos can be seen within Instagram or a separate IGTV app. A few of our tips to make the most of IGTV for your nonprofit are as follows:
- When you’re taking videos for IGTV, you can only do vertical videos. Why? It’s easier for people to view on their mobile devices.
- IGTV has channels to enhance the user experience. Think of these channels like a TV channel that you can change. It is functionality that allows people to sort their favorite IGTV videos.
- Keeping videos short and sweet because people will tune out quickly. But, IGTV allows you to post videos that can be as much as an hour in case you have content that benefits from that length.
Instagram Stories
Nonprofit Instagram videos has to include Stories, which captured the imagination of fundraisers and marketing teams. A reason for this includes the fact that Stories appear at the top of users’ feeds. If your followers haven’t engaged with you recently, you’ll get around algorithms which won’t rank your posts. Instead, your Stories would be shown at the top when a user opens their Instagram app. Another reason is that nonprofit fundraisers love the opportunity to create urgency for a special effort. It compels people to act because the information is time sensitive. A couple of our tips to make the best of Instagram Stories follow:
- When you’re developing content for Instagram Stories, remember it will last only 24 hours. It’s different content than long-form content you could post to IGTV. For instance, use Stories to feature breaking news about your organization. You can also promote an event, or tease an upcoming activity.
- Use Instagram Stories for special micro-fundraisers. Those are meant to promote a program during a limited time. Micro-fundraisers aligns well with how people navigate in the digital world––meaning, short and sweet.
- Have fun with Instagram Stories. Take advantage of the stickers, pen, and colors you can place on your videos. Creativity is a hallmark of social media content and videos today. You have to catch peoples’ attention, and creative videos are one of the ways to do it.
Next week on our blog we’ll explore how to leverage influencer marketing on Instagram. Don’t miss it! We hope you enjoyed our post about Instagram videos.
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