Instagram has received much attention from marketing and PR pros, especially since the platform launched video in 2013. With video, brands use sight, sound and motion to add richness to the stories they share with their audience.
More recently, Instagram introduced a bevy of features for video, including rewind. As we know, social media users are consuming increasingly more videos daily. In fact, during a six-month period between late 2015 and early 2016, the time people spent watching videos on Instagram increased by more than 40%, according to the Instagram for Business blog. In late April this year Instagram said it had 700 million users, with the last 100 million joining “faster than ever.”
Likewise, Instagram video has become useful and powerful content for strategic communicators. In much the same way as photos, Instagram users can like, share and comment on videos.
For clients and organizations new to Instagram, the likes, shares and comments can give a marketing and PR team data about how a client’s or organization’s content is performing. Plus, these simple metrics can provide insight into what could be done to improve them.
Using Video-Specific Metrics
Since using Instagram video is a crucial tactic in the communication mix, however, video-specific metrics should be an integral component when evaluating and optimizing video content. Likes, shares and comments are far from the only ways to evaluate the effectiveness of video content.
Many companies and organizations are active on Instagram, but they might not accurately and effectively measure whether their video efforts are producing a long-term impact for success.
This article explores several basic, yet beneficial, metrics that, when used in concert, can help organizations of all kinds evaluate the effectiveness of their video efforts in Instagram.
Metric 1: Number of Followers
Let’s start with a basic metric, the number of followers an Instagram account generates over time. This can be a useful measure that indicates how well the content resonates with an existing audience and entices new users to follow. It is, however, important not to look at this metric as the only element of success.
Many organizations focus heavily on the number of followers they have without clearly documenting which content (video or photos) might have helped with an increase. Having a large audience to share videos is crucial to disseminating the message to more relevant followers, but if the quality of the message in the video is poor, then having a large following is useless.
Metric 2: Video Views
In February 2016, Instagram rolled out a metric known as video views. Below videos in your stream you can see the number of views, how many people liked the video and who they are.
Many marketers in industry literature have argued for the validity and reliability of video views, but the view count is yet another measure that can be used as part of an evaluation package.
Instagram will mark a view as three seconds, just like Facebook. Video views are located under each video post if using the Instagram app on a mobile device. If on a laptop or desktop computer, the view count will be to the right of the video.
Metric 3: Frequency
Consistently measuring how often an organization posts videos (or photos) is important to monitor to understand how the frequency of posts results in an increase or decreasein followers, comments or likes to videos.
Paying attention to the rate at which videos are posted each month also relates to quality over quantity, as discussed in the first metric above.
Organizations should experiment with frequency to see when its audience is active and how often an audience interacts with content. This would help better direct a future video-posting strategy.
Metric 4: Engagement
The rate at which videos are liked and commented can prove to be a significant barometer of the audience’s interest in what a company or organization is sharing and how quickly the following might grow on Instagram.
This idea needs to be taken one step further, though. When a user interacts with individual pieces of photo or video content, this is known, of course, as engagement. The concept of engagement is important because it is the value behind having a large audience. This not only applies to Instagram but to any social media platform.
When it comes to evaluating engagement, benchmarks established at certain intervals of time—monthly, quarterly and annually—to monitor audience interactions with video can be helpful. By watching what kinds of videos an audience prefers, an organization can use a video that performed successfully under this metric as a model to create another one.
Metric 5: Audience Feedback
Measuring the frequency and sentiment of user-generated content about an organization, company or brand is a vital way of gauging audience opinions on Instagram.
Companies and organizations have an advantage when it comes to social media: They can have a two-way communication process with their audience. A quality video message can spark this conversation. Therefore, organizations should recognize opportunities to like, comment on or repost user-generated content.
Metric 6: Hashtags
As with Instagram photos, a method of tracking a video’s growth on Instagram is by monitoring hashtags. Organizations can follow hashtags in Instagram related to their brand name and product offerings, as well as those they create for video messages, campaigns and giveaways.
When creating a hashtag to measure and monitor the success of a video campaign, organizations should choose a unique grouping of words that clearly identify its brand and that have not been used previously or are associated with other campaigns or messages.
Hashtags can be tracked easily on Instagram by visiting the explore tab and typing in a hashtag. Identifying audience groups on Instagram can also be achieved by looking through videos tagged with certain hashtags that relate to that organization or business.
In addition, measuring hashtags on Instagram videos can help determine what types of video content resonate with an audience. This analysis could come from videos with hashtags taken at concerts, during conference sessions or at any other events where videos are being taken and shared.
Using video as a social media tactic on Instagram offers a creative approach to reaching an audience. Like any other tactic used in a marketing message, Instagram video should be evaluated for effective, long-term gains to a company or brand. The key is to apply a variety of metrics, not rely on one. This way, a comprehensive analysis can be achieved.
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