Maybe you've heard this already, but video is a pretty big deal in social media marketing these days.
Of course, you have heard this - anyone who stays up to date with the latest social trends, in any capacity, knows that video has seen massive growth in recent times. That video content's generating the most organic reach of any post type on Facebook. That Snapchat's grown from 2 billion video views per day only a year ago to 10 billion today. That video consumption on Twitter has grown 220x in the last 12 months.
The technological evolution of mobile devices, coupled with increased network capacity, has upped the ante for content creators everywhere. Now, with people able to watch video anytime, anywhere, that's generally what they do, and their expectations for how you reach them through content are also increasing in-step. If you're not considering how you can use video to your advantage, you may be missing a trick.
And Instagram's no different. While most people associate Instagram with static images, the platform's also seen significant growth in video consumption, with a 40% rise in time spent watching video on the network in the last six months. The increased interest in video content has lead to Instagram adding more video options, like increasing the video length limit to 60 seconds and bringing back the ability to make videos out of multiple clips from your camera roll.
And today, to help businesses further capitalize that increased enthusiasm for video content, Instagram's announced that advertisers will now be able to include videos in carousel ads, with the capacity to add up to five video clips - or use a combination of still images and video - to enhance their brand messaging.
As per Instagram:
"... research shows adding video to an existing campaign drives higher favorability than campaigns with static photos only. As people watch more and more video on the platform, video carousel ads can help businesses reach potential consumers in new, more immersive ways."
As with regular carousel ads, you can add any combination of three to five photos or videos to your carousel ad unit. The ads appear as Sponsored posts in users' Instagram feeds and are swipeable, enabling viewers to flip through as they wish.
"Advertisers also have full control of the order of the content, so photos and videos will appear in a sequence you choose. For businesses wanting to tell a more sequenced story, placing creative in a specific order will work to your advantage."
To highlight the capacity of the new video carousel units, Instagram's worked with Disney to create a new campaign for the upcoming film "Alice: Through the looking Glass". The videos in the carousel invite users into the story by showing a sequence where Alice steps through the mirror into Wonderland.
As you can imagine, based on this example, there's strong storytelling potential for carousel video. If that first video is engaging, it'll invite users to swipe through and see more of the story, which can be a powerful draw to help boost engagement. This ad also plays into the visual nature of Instagram, using a highly stylized and artistic topic.
Instagram's also worked with Jeep to create a carousel video campaign around its four-wheel drive vehicles. Through a four video sequence (along with the main image), Jeep showcases how their cars are able to conquer various terrains.
Jeep's effectively showing off use-cases, which is also a great way to communicate what it is your product provides and how it fits into your consumers' world. You can imagine, based on this, using carousel video to show the various ways your offerings can be used - think about how people are actually benefiting from your products every day and showcase those stories in real, moving demonstrations to generate more interest and response.
Carousel ads have proven to be a strong performing ad unit for both Facebook and Instagram alike. On Facebook, research has shown that carousel ads drive up to 10x more click-throughs than static posts, while on Instagram, carousel campaigns, on average, see a 2.5 point increase in ad recall over single image ads. The addition of video only enhances this option, making it more powerful and providing you with new ways in which to communicate your brand message.
You can create video carousel ads in Ads Manager or Power Editor, and you're also able to run your carousel ads across Facebook and Instagram.