Instagram has recently grown to be an important tool for businesses to create brand awareness and expand reach. Gone are the days when it was only accessible by large companies and popular brands with a big marketing budget. Technology has today made it possible for small businesses and eCommerce store owners to compete in the same field.
There are several ways you can promote your eCommerce business on social media platforms; Instagram video marketing is one of the most powerful ones. Creating and sharing captivating video content on the popular social network helps drive engagement and increase sales, and anyone can start churning out high-quality videos with ease.
In this guide, let us try to understand how you can successfully leverage Instagram video to promote your eCommerce store.
Types of Instagram Videos for eCommerce
With the increasing demand and preference for video, Instagram has introduced a wide variety of video-related features to enable you to create captivating content that attracts and engages audiences.
Let us discuss the types of videos eCommerce businesses can use for Instagram marketing.
In-Feed Video
These videos appear in the Instagram feeds of audiences and play automatically without sound as they scroll.
You can share a single video in this format or a carousel post containing up to ten videos and pictures. This type of video is great for posting branding content, tutorials, educational videos, and anything else that generates engagement on the platform.
Video Stories
A highly popular feature on the platform, stories allow sharing short, fun, entertaining videos that remain active for 24 hours.
These are great for showcasing the daily operations and updates for your business. Instagram stories help build and maintain a connection with the audiences on Instagram.
Live Video
These are broadcasts shared with the audience in real-time. Live videos are an effective way to interact directly with the followers, giving you a chance to gain insight and feedback about your brand and offerings.
IGTV Video
This video content type on Instagram allows sharing lengthy videos with your followers. These videos let you include more information about a topic, making them valuable and engaging for the audience.
Reels
This Instagram feature lets you create short, interesting video clips for up to 60 seconds. Like TikTok, Instagram Reels offer a collection of tools for editing and allow adding captions, filters, multiple clips, stickers, and other elements to make it entertaining.
Instagram Video Ads
While the above-discussed forms of videos work well for organic reach and traffic, Instagram video ads provide an effective way to see quick results. You can run Instagram video ads in two formats – In-feed video ads and Story ads. Regardless of the type of ad you choose to promote your eCommerce store, video ads bring more clicks and conversions if used right.
In-feed video ads can be up to 120 seconds in length while Stories allow 15-second long videos. However, if you create a carousel ad, Instagram allows adding a maximum of 10 slides with a limit of 60 seconds per video; you can add 3 slides to a carousel story ad. It is recommended that you use a resolution of 1:1 for in-feed ads while story ads can have a resolution of 9:16.
Instagram Video Best Practices to Promote eCommerce Store
Let us talk about some best practices that help make the most out of video when using Instagram for your eCommerce marketing.
Create Compelling Content
The way Instagram promotes video content today makes it evident how crucial it is for eCommerce businesses. However, a great thing about videos is that they don’t demand much in terms of effort and time. Instagram users like short, casual videos that are fun and entertaining. You can quickly capture some shots and post them as Stories, posts, and IGTV videos.
One of the best ways to ensure your video generates engagement is to follow the latest trends on the platform. Take ideas from the most trending videos and come up with something unique that matches the theme and essence of your business.
Tell A Story
People like to watch videos that have a story rather than a plain promotional message. See that your video narrates a story around some characters and conveys emotions along with your brand message. This will ensure your viewers can connect with you on a personal level and become loyal customers.
Keep Them Short
As attention spans reduce, people want to get entertained with shorter videos. Studies found that Instagram videos receive the highest engagement average at 26 seconds.
This implies that you should keep your videos as brief as possible to fit user preferences. Rather than filling up the entire length of 60 seconds for your Stories, try to create appealing videos under half a minute for better results.
Work With Influencers
Influencer marketing is not only an effective strategy for large brands; eCommerce businesses can work with micro-influencers who help promote the business to the local community.
You can look for people in your niche who have a well-established following on the platform and collaborate with them to promote your products and expand your reach.
Choose Intriguing Thumbnails
Thumbnails are what people see before even playing the video. A captivating thumbnail attracts the users and encourages them to stop and check the video while scrolling.
It also ensures that your video gets views when somebody is checking out your account as videos don’t play automatically here.
Use Stickers, Links & Tags
When you post a video through Instagram Stories, you can add up to ten hashtags while other formats allow even more. See that you select the most relevant tags for your posts to get your content ranking higher on the explore page and receive better engagement.
Businesses can also add links to their Stories to give the viewers a quick purchase option from within the platform. Stickers like polls and questions help learn more about your follower interests while product stickers allow tagging products. You can also use a timer sticker in a post that promotes a time-bound offer.
Final Thoughts
Instagram is one of the most powerful channels for promoting an eCommerce business with video as it offers such a wide variety of formats and features to benefit from.
While it takes longer to create video content than a photo post, the results you get from video marketing on Instagram are well worth it.
Create a marketing strategy that uses an integration of all the types of video formats on the platform to maximize the benefits of Instagram videos for your eCommerce store.
