Is IGTV the New Youtube?

When Instagram announced the launch of IGTV, its app for long-form video content, the comparisons to YouTube were inevitable. Known for eating market-share of its competitors, could IGTV become the new go-to platform for video content?

The creation of IGTV heavily leverages the existing community of one billion monthly active Instagram users. While IGTV is a standalone app, video content is organically integrated into the main platform. If you already have an Instagram account, the network will automatically take your profile and transition it to the new app, which includes your following base—essentially a follow on Instagram is an automatic follow on IGTV.

Instagram’s push to highlight creators directly will be key to competing in the video space, as consumers—particularly among younger audiences—increasingly look to influencers for news, entertainment, and consumer advice. Like TV, the idea behind IGTV is to have channels, where content creators take the role of channels.

One way IGTV has distinguished itself from YouTube is that it has been designed as a mobile-only platform, which means it is built for vertical video viewing. This caters to the scrolling culture Instagram became famous for, as well as the ways users naturally interact with their phones, without having to tip the smartphone display horizontally.

Organization will be one of the greatest challenges IGTV will have to overcome if it wants to seriously compete with the video publishing giant, YouTube. Currently, the way you find content on these two platforms is very different. Since IGTV is not a search engine, you cannot look for videos using keywords; the most you can do is search using hashtags or specific usernames. “Search is probably the hardest thing to get right and one of the biggest advantages YouTube has,” says YouTube sensation Marques Brownlee.

Some subtler kinks IGTV will have to iron out, are problems with linking and the comments feature.

Linking has been an ongoing issue on Instagram in general, as the platform doesn’t allow for clickable links on individual posts, giving rise to the familiar “link in bio”.

The comments feature on IGTV also needs some refining as interacting with the videos is not a fluid experience. When you’re watching a particular video and you click on the comments section, it shrinks the video to show all the comments.

The feature could be improved if it modeled Instagram Live, which displays comments transparently over the live video, allowing viewers to see both comments and content at full size.

Perhaps the biggest hurdle will be how IGTV will decide to monetize their content, which at this point has not been made public. YouTube’s built-in system allows YouTubers to do more than just sponsored content, by paying creators via a revenue share, which allows some of the biggest YouTubers to earn anywhere from $1,000 – å$10,000 per month. In order to capture market share, and compete with YouTube, IGTV will have to lure content creators by offering something enticing and lucrative.

Despite the rough edges, IGTV is an excellent new tool for content creators and influencers to increase engagement and followers. The app is a great opportunity to take part in your personal brand and place it on IGTV and position another part on YouTube, creating related but separate content to maximize both platforms.

If you make a longer form YouTube video, shoot something specifically for IGTV to cross promote the two channels and expand your following. Lifestyle, quick food-based channels, and vloggers should take particular advantage of IGTV since not all of their content is easily searchable via keywords.

As IGTV works to carve its place in the video-content market, it is clear that YouTube remains video king. Nevertheless, IGTV is opening an interesting niche for high-quality mobile videos, which brands, influencers, and creatives should definitely integrate into their social media strategy.