Video is widely hailed as the most powerful and best-performing media for obvious reasons – it provides the richest experience and lets viewers get up close and personal with celebrities and brands.
In light of this, it’s hardly surprising that eight out of 10 18-to-49-year-olds watch YouTube, meaning that the platform sees an average of one billion views per day.
With such an incredible audience, reach and revenue, it’s only natural that many brands try to take a piece of the pie, says Ricardo Seixas, head of digital at ClickTap Media.
However, he believes that with the arrival of Instagram’s ‘IGTV’ video platform, we are seeing a real challenger to the video giant’s dominancy for the first time.
“This is the very first time that YouTube has a serious challenger with an enormous scale and reach,” said Seixas.
“It’s very pertinent timing. YouTube has been constantly criticised by its creators about monetisation problems and some plot twists on ad policies.
“But now creators have a viable alternative with the necessary space and size to fulfil their revenue ambitions – a key engine to platform growth.”
The reason for the potential of this particular medium, says Seixas, is that it capitalises on the power of two hugely successful social media platforms – Instagram and its owner, Facebook.
Facebook boasts 2.20 billion monthly users and Instagram recently smashed the one billion active user milestone. Add to that the fact that 59 per cent of 18-29-year olds use Instagram while a whopping 80 per cent of users follow a business.
“Businesses have the opportunity to extend their content marketing and messaging even further, using the most engaging type of media on the most-used device, capturing valuable screen time,” said Seixas.
He believes this will allow businesses and brands to leverage influencers and video content to advertise and influence an already highly engaged audience.
“Instagram already holds engagement records across all channels, and video is limited on the main app, so the potential is there,” he said.
“We are already seeing great movement from creators and brands adopting IGTV, from home DIY content creators to famous tech reviewers and fashion celebrities.
“By celebrities I don’t mean your usual Kardashian but instead the mega-influencer mum with millions of followers that started at a local call centre and now has a million-pound-per-year income in advertising. It’s about the ones that most relate to you in a genuinely human and authentic way.”
IGTV will naturally thrive over the coming years as it learns and iterates, says Seixas, although it won’t be an overnight explosive success as there are still many unanswered questions.
However Seixas and his team are excited about the potential of the new channel.
“To put it in perspective, we recently did an influencer marketing campaign on Instagram for one of our fast-fashion clients. We used a storytelling, through-the-line approach by leveraging video on Instagram Stories for the campaign,” he said.
“With influencers carefully selected to match demographics and brand affinity, along with the storytelling thread, the results are staggering!
“Almost 50 per cent of the combined followers between the multiple influencers we used saw the content.
“It’s a penetration that no other media channel has. The engagements, between likes, comments and shares, were again above all other formats at 9.5 per cent. A typical engagement is 3-6 per cent.
“Instagram and influencers, against some myths, can also work for bottom funnel and conversions.
“So, for me, there’s only one question. Will the IGTV vertical video work?”
Watch Ricardo Seixas share his thoughts here.