5 Tips for Creating Great IGTV Videos

There are now 500 million daily active users on Instagram. Think about that. Every day, half a billion people are spending time on Instagram. On average, each of those people will spend approximately 53 minutes per day on the app. The numbers don’t lie. Instagram is where it’s at.

And the new frontier is IGTV. According to Instagram, they developed IGTV in order to allow the capability for “longer videos and easy discoverability through channels, all in a vertical format that sits upright, in the palm of your hand.”

If you’re new to this format, you may be wondering how to create great IGTV videos that will help you stand out. Here are our best tips!

5 Tips for Creating Great IGTV Videos

1. Use A Tripod

Now, just to be clear, there’s nothing wrong with some selfie-style videos. But it’s a good bet that, at some point, you’ll want to shoot a video where you’re not holding the camera. If you want to shoot a professional-looking video without enlisting another person, the easiest way to accomplish that is with a tripod. And this isn’t a place where you have to blow the budget. There are plenty of inexpensive tripods on the market. In fact, tripods that are designed for smartphones are especially budget-friendly — you can find quality options as low as $13.79.

2. Add Captions

Did you know that 80% of videos on social media are watched on mute? That’s why captions are essential for a great IGTV video. If you don’t want to waste your valuable time transcribing your video and creating captions, give Zubtitle a try! It’s the first automated, on-demand social media video tool that automatically transcribes the speech in your video and converts it to captions.

3. Include A Title

Attention spans just keep getting shorter and shorter (the current average is about 8 seconds). So if you want people to watch your video, you need to grab their attention. And an eye-catching, interest-piquing title at the very top of your video is one of the best ways to do that. Make sure to use keywords and a tone for your title that will appeal to your target audience.

Pro tip: If you’re using Zubtitle to add captions, you can also use it to add a title! Just select the Text Editor menu option.

4. Size It Right

IGTV is built for vertical video. You want your video to fill your viewer’s entire screen. That’s why the ideal aspect ratio for IGTV is 9:16 (portrait size), which is also the standard size of most smartphone screens. And we have good news: this is another capability of Zubtitle! While you’re adding captions and creating a title, you can also easily resize your video so it’s optimized for IGTV (and any other social media platform you want).

5. Keep It Quick

One of the reasons Instagram introduced IGTV was because of the length limitation on Instagram videos. You can only post 1-minute-long videos to your Instagram feed. IGTV, on the other hand, offers a much longer maximum video length: 10 minutes for most accounts, and 60 minutes for verified accounts. But this is one of those classic situations where just because you can doesn’t mean you should. It’s best to keep your IGTV video short and sweet. Try to stick to 2-5 minutes so that your viewer doesn’t lose interest.

Are you ready to start creating great IGTV videos (including captions, titles, and more)?

Sign up for a free Zubtitle account today to get started! With our free plan, you can create two videos per month. To create up to 10 videos per month (and remove the Zubtitle watermark), check out our standard plan.