A few short years ago, simply having an Instagram presence was enough for brands to stay one step ahead of competitors. Today, 60% of users discover new products on Instagram and 80% of accounts follow a business on the platform, so it’s no wonder that 25 million businesses use Instagram for social media marketing growth.
No matter the size and niche of your business, Instagram has huge marketing potential. But with a great number of competitors on the market, it’s important to develop a successful Instagram marketing strategy to beat your competitors.
So what’s the solution? Video content marketing!
According to Hubspot research, 61% of consumers want to learn something from the videos they see on social media and 54% of customers want to see more videos from brands they support. Video content is also getting more and more popular on Instagram:
- Users report an 80% increase in time spent watching video on Instagram
- 100 million Instagrammers watch or share on Live daily
- Videos get up to 21% more interactions than images
With the popularity of Instagram video content, many big brands make the most out of this trend and get great business results. For example, when GAP wanted to boost brand awareness and reach new customers, the company tested Instagram Stories video carousel ads. In partnership with influencers (SZA and Metro Boomin), the campaign resulted in a 17-point lift in ad recall and it got a 73% higher click-through rate than the previous Instagram campaign.
Of course, if you’re not one of the most popular clothing retailers, you may have trouble spending much budget on video creation. Thus, you need to know simple Instagram video ideas for social media marketing growth. To begin with, let’s find out more about Instagram video content.
Instagram Video Content Formats
Video content marketing is evolving, and now there are three main video formats on Instagram:
- In-feed video posts: Back in 2013, when video posts were introduced, they were limited to 15 seconds. Today, users want to see more videos from brands, so it’s possible to upload a video up to 60 seconds in length.
- Instagram stories videos: With the rise of vertical video, this format has become extremely popular among users. Today, over 500 million users create or watch Stories daily, so it’s no doubt that this content is engaging.
- IGTV and livestream: Since some of the videos must be longer than one minute, Instagram has these two long-form formats. While IGTV is an in-app video channel, Livestream is a way to engage users in real-time.
Here’s an Instagram video formats cheat sheet:
No matter what Instagram video format you choose, it’s important to know simple video ideas to grab your audience’s attention, engage your followers, and get better business results without spending much time and money on video creation.
Top 9 Simple Instagram Video Ideas
People love videos. The good news? There’s no need to run expensive video campaigns to engage your Instagram followers, spread the word about your product, and increase revenue.
With simple Instagram video ideas that don’t require much time or money, you can jump on the bandwagon of video content marketing trend and get better business results even if you’re on a budget.
1. Product Overviews
Modern users are savvy: With tons of branded information that bombards them from all sides, they pay attention to products that can satisfy their needs. Thus, customers seek out product reviews to ensure your product can solve their problems before making purchase decisions.
It goes without saying that it can be difficult to convince your customers to create product review videos for you. However, it’s easy to make a product overview – just show your product in action. For example, BaliBody shows how to use the products with a short in-feed Instagram video. It makes followers feel excited to give the product a try.
With the growing demand for long-form educational videos, it’s no wonder many brands use IGTV for business. Moreover, it’s a way to show your niche expertise and make a product overview. Let’s take Sephora, for example. Working in the beauty industry, the company shares makeup tutorials, featuring its products.
As a marketer or a business owner, you know everything about the benefits of your product. Thus, it doesn’t require much effort, knowledge, or time to show your potential customers how to use your product and provide them with solid reasons to give it a try.
2. Stop Motion Videos
Modern users are tired of overly polished promotional content, so it’s no wonder that simple stop motion videos are trending on Instagram. With stop motion videos, you can create unique and interesting content – just let your creativity run wild. Whether you want to tell your company’s story or show off your product, there are many ways how to use stop motion videos to engage the audience in an easy way.
Just take a look at this example from Starbucks. It looks simple but awesome.
3. Fast Motion Videos
Fast motion option helps to show off the progress faster without boring your followers to death. Moreover, 85% of video content is watched without sound, so this type of content can work well on Instagram.
If you wonder what type of fast motion videos you can shoot, pay attention to the fact that Instagrammers love behind the scenes content as it brings authenticity. Thus, you may want to show the teamwork process fast. Like this one from MailChimp:
Although your customers are more likely to be interested in the product creation process, no one wants to spend too much time watching it, so speed up the video to keep your followers engaged.
4. Rewind Mode
With a great number of videos on social media, you need to stay creative to grab your followers’ attention. If you want to show your product in an interesting and funny way, think about the rewind mode to reverse your video.
Here’s an example from Baskin Robbins:
With over 23k views, this example is great as it shows how to grab audiences’ attention and cause the buzz around your product without investing much in video content creation.
5. Animation
The animation is not just about entertaining kids; it has gained in popularity as a powerful marketing tool. Animated videos tell the stories, engage customers, and stick to your followers’ memories. Plus, this video content idea is easy to produce. With a variety of animation maker software on the market, it’s extremely easy (and cost-effective) to create engaging videos even if you don’t have an in-house designer.
Here is an example 2d animation from WowMakers
As you can see, animated videos are engaging and fun. Not only can they hook your audience’s attention, but they can also deliver your brand message to your target audience.
6. User-Generated Content (UGC)
Video content creation can take much time and effort unless you encourage your fans to create user-generated content for you. Did you know videos created by users generate 10x more views than branded content? For brands, this means that UGC videos are a cost-effective way to prove the popularity of your product. Not surprisingly, even big brands that can afford video creation turn to their fans to feature UGC videos.
Like most large companies, GoPro has many fans around the globe who use the product. Thus, the company runs social media contests to encourage followers to create user-generated content for a chance to win valuable prizes. As a result, GoPro has many UGC videos to share on Instagram as social proof:
Today, UGC videos help businesses of all sizes spread the word about the products, increase brand loyalty and trust, and save the marketing budget. If you want to get more UGC videos, establish a connection with your followers and give them a solid reason to produce videos for you, whether you give authors a shoutout on Instagram or exclusive discount.
7. Behind the Scenes
People crave authenticity, so it’s important to humanize your brand to attract more customers and stay one step ahead of your competitors. With the behind the scenes (BTS) content, it’s absolutely easy. What is more, there’s no need to produce high-quality content – just take followers behind the scenes.
For example, in honor of the Wonderlust campaign launch, Michael Kors uploaded the BTS video with Gigi Hadid from one store in New York, and it generated over 531k views on Instagram:
Behind the scenes content allows brands to tell more about their views and values as well as stay genuine. As a result, this content attracts more customers who share the company’s values, builds trust, and goes viral.
8. Offline Events
Wouldn’t it be great if you could integrate online and offline marketing? Today, companies can promote their offline events on social media to build brand awareness, increase reach and engagement, and provide followers with unique content. With the popularity of short-lived content like Instagram Stories and Livestream, it’s easy to use your phone to show your offline event.
If you want to keep people watching videos longer, go live on social media to engage your audience in real-time. Since livestream videos create the fear of missing out (FOMO), followers watch videos as they are afraid of missing out something important.
And if you don’t have time to livestream the whole event, you can upload short videos to Instagram Stories to show your offline event. Here’s how H&M used Instagram Stories to tell followers more about the offline event:
And when it comes to offline events, Gucci knows how to keep its virtual community engaged. Since the company has many fans around the globe, it livestreams fashion shows to make the following a part of the event. Plus, the company has uploaded the video to its IGTV channel so that all followers and visitors can watch the fashion show whenever they want to do it:
9. Influencers’ Shoutouts
Influencer marketing isn’t a new concept. Since customers seek out peers’ recommendations before making purchase decisions, many brands collaborate with influencers to promote their products on social media. When it comes to video content creation, influencers can also help you.
Look: In partnership with Kendall Jenner, Calvin Klein promotes its #mycalvins hashtag to attract followers’ attention to the product and spread the word about the product on social media. Since Kendall Jenner has a large and engaged following, this video gets many views, likes, and comments:
Although collaborating with celebrities can be daunting for smaller companies, there are some ways to reach your target audience without spending much budget on the promotion, whether you want to work with video influencers or turn your customers into brand advocates.
For example, Hubspot works with a niche expert to share tips and tricks with the following, and it drives engagement:
If you don’t want to spend your marketing budget on an influencer marketing campaign that won’t bring great results, get math help to determine the profit margin first or partner with niche experts to get exposure without wasting much money.
How to Make Simple Instagram Videos Engaging
- Learn from the best brands online: No matter how creative you are, it’s important to see what other brands post online to boost inspiration and analyze the type of video that works well for your target audience.
- Make amazing videos with professional video tools: Today, there’s no need to hire expensive video content creators to make engaging videos. Once you have a video idea, turn to DIY video creation tools and create marketing videos with ease.
- Know your audience well: Publishing your videos on Instagram means nothing until you have an engaged following who loves watching them. Thus, it’s important to use social media analytics to see what works better for your Instagram followers.
Conclusion
Having Instagram presence isn’t enough to attract your audience’s attention and promote your product. First of all, you need to remember that your potential customers have many options at their fingertips, so it’s important to give them what they want.
In other words, creating Instagram videos is a must for social media marketing growth. With these simple Instagram video ideas, you can build brand awareness, increase engagement, and boost sales without spending much budget.
So, are you ready to create more videos for your Instagram?
