Chapter 18

Understanding IGTV

IN THIS CHAPTER

Locating IGTV

Understanding how IGTV operates

IGTV was introduced in 2018 as a standalone app that integrated with Instagram. Sound confusing? It is! IGTV was designed to be its own app for viewing and interactions, and yet it’s tied directly to your Instagram profile. It’s a video-only platform with some unique components.

In this chapter, we show you the various aspects of IGTV, how you can use it, and what makes it different. We also explain why you’re seeing what you see in the feed.

Finding IGTV within Instagram

Even though IGTV is a singular component, it’s actually accessible from multiple places within the Instagram app:

• On an account’s profile: If the account is using IGTV and has created videos, you’ll see the little IGTV icon just above the images on the user’s profile page. Figure 18-1 (left) shows you where to find IGTV from an account’s profile.
• Within your home feed on Instagram: In the upper-right corner of the home feed, you see the IGTV icon. Figure 18-1 (center) shows you that location.
• On the Explore page (tap the magnifying glass icon in the bottom navigation bar to get there): On the Explore page, an IGTV tab is at the top of the screen. Figure 18-1 (right) shows you where that’s located.

FIGURE 18-1: There are three locations to access IGTV: on an account’s profile (left), within your home feed (center), and on the Explore page (right).

In addition to these three locations, you can also see IGTV videos recommended for you on the Explore page. The videos will appear in the list of suggested content, as shown in Figure 18-1 (right).

If someone you follow creates an IGTV video and shares a preview of that video to Instagram, you’ll also see that preview as a post when you’re scrolling through your feed (see Figure 18-2, left). It will appear as a regular post, but you’ll see the IGTV icon in the lower-left corner of the video. If you tap that icon, you’ll be taken to the full IGTV video; if you watch the entire 1-minute preview, you’ll be prompted to watch the remainder of the video on IGTV (see Figure 18-2, center). Tapping that option will open the IGTV video and allow you to continue watching (see Figure 18-2, right).

FIGURE 18-2: Watching an IGTV video.

Finding IGTV within the IGTV App

As we already mentioned, IGTV is a standalone app. You can install it from the app store for your device by searching for IGTV. After you’ve installed the app on your device, you can log in as the same account you use on Instagram. All your profile information and followers will transfer to the IGTV app.

If you unfollow or follow someone on IGTV, that same interaction occurs on your Instagram account, and vice versa. The two are linked and you can’t follow different people on IGTV than you do on your Instagram account.

After you have your IGTV account set up and you’re in the app, you’ll be taken to the home feed (see Figure 18-3). This is where the videos of the people you follow and those recommended for you will all appear. You can scroll vertically through the videos and tap any video to play it.

FIGURE 18-3: The IGTV home feed is full of videos from those you follow and those recommended for you by Instagram.

Understanding How IGTV Videos are Formatted

IGTV was designed to be used only with vertical videos. In addition, the video viewer would not rotate when the mobile device was turned to the horizontal position (as most other video players do).

Instagram wanted to make an impact by forcing content creators to create fresh new content in vertical mode while also adhering to a growing trend for people to shoot and watch videos in a vertical orientation (much like Instagram stories). This different format challenges a lot of content creators because you don’t have as much visual real estate to showcase a background or additional content except the object or person in the frame of the video. As more people move toward story content and people become comfortable filming videos in portrait orientations, IGTV will continue to capitalize on that video format.

In 2019, Instagram announced that it would start allowing horizontal videos to be uploaded and that those videos would rotate with the screen. Not all users yet have this functionality, though.

IGTV videos can be anywhere from 15 seconds up to one hour in length. They encourage longer-form content that keeps viewers watching longer. In contrast to Instagram stories, which only last up to 15 seconds, IGTV videos are meant to share more in-depth content.

Videos from 15 seconds to 10 minutes in length can be uploaded via your mobile device. Videos of 10 minutes to 60 minutes in length can only be uploaded via a desktop computer. We cover the upload procedures in Chapter 19.

Tapping Into Whose Videos You’re Seeing

Your IGTV home feed is full of the IGTV videos created by everyone you follow on Instagram. Whenever someone you follow adds another IGTV video, it will appear in your list of videos.

To keep you interested, however, much like the Explore page on Instagram, the IGTV home feed will populate videos that it thinks you’ll be interested in. These are not accounts you’re following but the video content or the account creators are similar in interest to other content you watch or accounts you follow.

If there are videos in your IGTV feed that you really don’t like or want to see, you can tap and hold that video preview in the feed. An option will pop up to show fewer videos like that in the feed. Additionally, when viewing a video full-screen, you can tap the three-dot button at the bottom of the screen to access a menu that allows you to see fewer posts, report the video, save the video, or copy the link for it. Tapping that menu option to see fewer posts like this one will tell the algorithm to show you less of that type of content.