There are many ways businesses and associations can leverage video: social media ads, in-depth content for YouTube, getting people’s attention while they scroll through their feed, the list goes on. One social media platform in particular has some really creative ways you can use video to get your message out to potential new members, customers, and organizations that may want to back your association: Instagram.

When people think of Instagram, they usually think of photo sharing. And that is definitely the platform’s strong suit, but Instagram has incorporated video in little ways that add up to a big difference for marketers. In this article we’ll go over what makes good Instagram video content and how you can use it to effectively promote your organization.

There’s a vast market of Instagram users that you’re missing out on if you don’t post video content. According to social media marketing company Hootsuite, one billion people were using Instagram every day at the end of 2019. Once you’ve created an Instagram business account, you’re ready to start using video.

There are four ways Instagram lets you use video on its platform:

Making video posts in your own feed that your followers will see.

• Purchasing video ads that automatically play in targeted customer’s feeds.
• Using video in Instagram Story posts.
• Creating your own IGTV video channel.

Let’s break some of these down in more detail and take a closer look at the features available.

Instagram Stories

That same Hootsuite study showed 500 million people a day used Instagram stories as of this writing. That’s a lot of eyeballs. Plenty of businesses have made use of photographs in stories to great effect, but you can take it one step further by using eye-catching video. Instagram itself has verified that campaigns using video perform better than those that only use photos.

Stories are short, but you could string several of them together to play a long video or post several short videos in a row. A quick video showcasing some of your employees and having them introduce themselves could be a great way for people to get to know your company, and could be created relatively easily.

Since stories are only visible for 24 hours (unless they’re added to Highlights), they’re also a good place to promote limited-time offers. Say you’re having a membership drive, offering a discount on dues for everyone that signs up over the next day. Post a story with a video explaining that deal. When people catch it, it’ll keep them coming back to your stories for the next bargain.

Video Posts and Video Ads

Posts to your feed can be a bit longer than ones in your stories and can be a great place to get a message out to people that already follow your association. You can post highlight footage from the latest member event, a charity drive that your association took part in, or a clip from a particularly relevant speech by an important member.

And you don’t have to stop there: you can use video to demonstrate how a new product works, or post a quick tutorial in an area where your association has some expertise. You can even use video posts to tease longer videos on your IGTV video channel. Timeline videos can be up to a minute long.

If you want to increase your reach beyond your social media following (and who doesn’t), consider investing in video ads. You can target your audience with demographic data for granularly focused ad exposure.

IGTV Video

This is the place where you can share the longest videos on Instagram, so if you’ve got a message that needs more than a minute, this is the place. You can get very creative here; IGTV videos can be combined to form a series or explore a single topic in-depth. They can be up to 15 minutes long when uploading from a mobile device, and a whopping 60 minutes long when uploading from Mac or PC.

Want to host a Q&A with members from around the world? Have them DM questions and film the read-and-reply in an IGTV video. Maybe your association is involved in humanitarian work and you want to showcase your team’s efforts in the communities they serve? Consider filming a short documentary-style video and uploading it here.

With all the options for businesses when it comes to Instagram video, the only real limitation is your imagination.