9 Tips for Instagram Videos for Designers
If you are using Instagram to promote your design services , you are doing a great job, as it is one of the best social networks. Most of its users are visual learners and are interested in design-related content.
If you want to get the most out of this network, you should incorporate social media videos into your Instagram marketing, as they generate more engagement than images.
Getting started with video marketing can be a challenge; therefore, I have created this step-by-step guide for making Instagram videos that generate engagement and sales to simplify things for you.
Research target audience.
You need to figure out who your target audience is, what they want to buy, and what they see on Instagram.
This can include where they are located, how old they are, what sort of products they want to buy (design services, design assets, courses, etc.), and the type of Instagram videos they interact with most.
This will help you figure out how to create content that drives engagement and sales.
You can get very technical here and create empathy maps, market maps, and personas . Taking these extra steps will take more time, but you will create better content.
Instagram makes it easy to collect this data with stories. You can use stickers such as questions, polls, and quizzes.
You can also ask people to leave comments on your feed posts. But I recommend that you combine this with a detailed customer needs analysis using analytics software, surveys, heat maps, and interviews to gather even more data as you can collect very little information on Instagram.
Create short videos.
You don’t need to create sophisticated videos to thrive on Instagram. Short videos that are less than 15 seconds long do well.
The attention span on networks like Instagram is low, so shorter videos do better. Instead of creating one long video, break it down into four to five videos and publish them separately.
Instagram has a sister network called IGTV, where longer videos do better. And if you want to publish even shorter videos, you can take advantage of formats like Instagram Stories.
Another video format gaining popularity is Reels which are similar to TikTok videos. Instagram is rewarding people who create Reels with more exposure. So, please take advantage of them immediately and generate views and engagement.
Create more informational videos.
The most effective type of content you can create is informational videos. In these videos, you share some tips about design that you know and build your authority.
They are straightforward to create. You record yourself sharing the tips with a special video camera or smartphone camera and then edit the videos.
While editing, you can get rid of distracting noises and even remove video backgrounds and replace them with something else if it looks messy.
Educational videos can also be screen recordings where you share a presentation or a tutorial. The type of content you create and publish will depend on your audience and goals.
Add thumbnails.
Some Instagram users will turn off autoplay on their Instagram accounts. Instead of watching the first few seconds of the video when they browse the feed, they will see a thumbnail.
This is why you should create thumbnails from the content in your videos and attach them to the video. Make sure you add some text that describes the video and other elements like icons, clipart, and textures that get the thumbnails to stand out. You can also brand it with the logo.
But don’t overcrowd the thumbnails with all these elements. Use plenty of negative space to drive attention to the most significant bits.
Accompany with captions.
The video is the main component of the Instagram post, but the caption plays a vital role too. After watching the video, users will read the caption to figure out what to do next.
So, accompany the video with a good caption. Use your copywriting skills to be highly persuasive and end with a call to action that asks people to take the next step. The call to action could be buying something, signing up to an email list , or following you.
You should also add some relevant hashtags to your Instagram captions as they can help you generate more engagement; for best results, add at least 11 hashtags.
Also, use low, medium, and high competition hashtags. Most people go for the high competition hashtags with millions of uses and don’t end up ranking for any of them. While starting, you are more likely to rank for the low and medium competition hashtags.
Spend at least ten minutes finding the best hashtags to use in your posts.
Use subtitles.
Many users (especially on mobile) will watch your videos on mute. You should optimise your Instagram videos for mobile viewing by adding subtitles.
Whatever words you speak in the video should appear as text so that anyone viewing the video can follow it.
Some people don’t add any speech. They add subtitles and music to their Instagram videos . This is one of the best ways to create Instagram videos that appeal to a broad audience.
It’s also easy to create these types of videos as there are some editors like Adobe Premiere convert text to speech and place them as subtitles. Also, Instagram integrates with apps like Spotify, making it easy to import music.
Use paid methods.
Only relying on organic methods will help you generate some sales at the start. Still, scaling results will take a while as you will need to attract more followers and nurture them before they decide on buying your products.
A shortcut is to rely on paid methods. The most straightforward way is to run ads . You can either promote the video content you created to generate more views or create new videos that promote products.
Instagram also lets you create an audience consisting of people who viewed your videos so that you can retarget them with ads. This can help you achieve higher engagement rates. So, create audiences for both organic Instagram videos and video ads.
Another paid method that might work out cheaper but requires more effort is influencer marketing . Some influencers will also help you by giving them a free product or promoting some of their products.
You can team up with some designers and promote their products or account, and in return, they can do the same for you. You can use virtual meeting apps to communicate with each other and develop a strategy that suits both of you.
You might also want to use an Instagram growth service to grow your account. This is probably the cheapest way to get more followers who will engage with your video posts now and in the future.
Pay attention to insights.
Generating solid results from your Instagram marketing won’t happen from the first video you publish. It takes time.
This holds true for both organic and paid methods. You should pay attention to the insights to determine if your videos of a particular type or length work better. This can take months, but you can use ads to drive views and see what resonates with your audience if you want to figure this out quickly.
Instagram has an excellent built-in insights tool that will help measure the effectiveness of your organic methods.
You can use the Facebook ad manager to track your ads. But there are also third-party apps for organic posts and ads you might want to check out.
Follow other designers.
The key to standing out on Instagram is to create better content than the competition. So, make sure you follow the top designers on Instagram to see what type of video content they are creating and what is working for them.
This will inspire you into creating better content for your account. Pay attention to metrics such as views, likes, and comments to figure out what works. You can also use a social listening tool to check the sentiment of these comments.
Now create your Instagram video content.
If you aren’t used to creating video content, you might feel a bit nervous creating them for the first time. But creating content for Instagram is easy as they need to be short, and there are video editors that make it easy for even non-designers to create them.
So, try today and skyrocket your engagement and sales. You can start with stories as they are probably the most accessible format.
Over time it will become second nature for you to create Instagram videos.
