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Pictures vs. Videos on Instagram
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Instagram has come up with a mountain of changes to its algorithm in the last year, and these obviously call for a change to your overall Instagram strategy. Big brands and publishers are already refining their content strategy on Instagram, and figuring out the right proportion of picture to video content is an essential component of that.
So, what does that mean for you? Should you continue focusing on pictures or make a shift to video content? Well, let’s find out below.
Which Should I Use; Pictures or Videos?
While it might sound a bit disappointing to you, but there’s no black and white here. You can’t rely on either of picture or video content when building a successful Instagram strategy.
The big publishers and brands on Instagram post a healthy mix of both pictures and videos and it’s working pretty well for them, as the study here suggests.
Of course, there are some exceptions to it, such as BBC News, which obviously posts an unusually high amount of video content than pictures. It’s easy to know if you’re in a niche that demands more of the one and less of the other.
However, for the rest of the users, it makes sense to utilize both the type of content and keep tweaking things based on the response they get from their followers.
Another important factor to keep in mind here is that pictures and videos are used for different tactics, in order to get the best results, depending on the targets or goals of the brand or business. Let’s learn more about it below.
Picture Content
Again, if the statistics are anything to go by, picture content works much better than video content when it comes to harnessing quick engagement. Picture-based posts get significantly more likes than video-based posts, which suggests that pictures are easier to interact with for users than videos.If you want to post your senior photos in your social media page, you may hire a senior portraits Middleton professional.
However, the engagement they generate isn’t very long-term, so it’s going to be a numbers game to a certain extent. While you do need to post high-quality pictures, you also need to make sure you’re posting enough of them every day for the engagement generated to convert into followers and customers.
How Video Content Works on Social Media Sites
Video content works differently in the sense that it’s hard to use it for generating engagement. After all, it takes a lot more resources and effort to make a video than to make simple pictures.
The users on Instagram are much more likely to just double tap on a picture they find appealing than watch a video and interact with it. This means that the short-term engagement for videos in the form of likes is lower than with pictures.
However, don’t let that fool you into thinking that the picture posts are a winner here. This is because although the videos don’t generate as much engagement in terms of likes, they tend to get a lot more comments than pictures.
This means that although less users will watch a video than see a picture on Instagram, the ones that do are much more likely to meaningfully engage with it by commenting and sharing their thoughts. This can go a long way in driving up the overall engagement.
Key Takeaways
Here are the key takeaways for you from this post:
- In most niches, having a healthy mix of picture and video posts would work the best
- Pictures get more likes and quick engagement, but you need to post them often and make sure they are relevant to your business’ goals to convert them into followers or loyal customers
- Videos are hard to get likes on compared to pictures, but if you make and post high-quality videos that make an impact, they would get more comments and more long-term engagement
