Next on the list to look into for producing great content for your exercisers to access is IGTV! IGTV (Instagram TV) is a great place for you to host longer, more thought-out video productions on Instagram vs. off-the-cuff Instagram Live streams. It is an excellent way to share how-to’s and tutorials, workouts, company news, and brand updates during this critical time that exercisers can watch at their leisure and keep them up to date and ​​engaging with your facility.​

The goal of IGTV is to be more like YouTube than Netflix. As a business, it’s important to think about it from the perspective of what value your videos will provide. You can even think of IGTV as an extension of your Instagram Stories. What voice, tone, and style of content do you share on your Stories? Your IGTV video content should follow a similar look and feel, but in a more “edited” and thought-out fashion.

Videos can be anywhere from 15 seconds to 10 minutes for most accounts, and up to one hour for larger/verified accounts. Bonus: Instagram now supports both vertical and horizontal videos on IGTV! 

When you post a new video to IGTV, your followers will get a notification. Viewers can your watch IGTV videos in the Instagram app, in the standalone IGTV app, or by clicking the IGTV button on your Instagram profile. Instagram also curates videos for users based on their interests and who they follow, so your IGTV has a good chance of extending your reach to more than just people who already follow you. And just like users can with Instagram Stories, they also have the ability to share IGTV videos to Instagram accounts through Instagram Direct Messages, giving you more opportunity for a broader reach.

Now that you know what IGTV is, let’s dig in to the specifics.

Content to Share on IGTV​

1. A Day in the Life - follow a trainer and how they are sticking to their nutrition and fitness goals during this “lock down period”.
2. Company Updates - what you are doing during this time off and how you are preparing for the “bounceback”
3. Workout Library - create workouts of the day for members to save and use at their own discretion.
4. Recipe Creations  - create videos of how to make healthy meals at home following a specific recipe.

Now that you know what to share, let’s see how to best share it with your followers!

How to Create Your Own IGTV Channel

Step 1: Download and sign in to the IGTV app (not to be confused with the Instagram app) using the same log in info as your normal Instagram account.

Step 2: Click on the settings gear icon in the right-hand corner, and then click “Create Channel”.

That’s it! Now that you have created your channel, you’re ready to upload your videos.

How to Upload Videos to IGTV​

Step 1: Record or produce your video.

Step 2: Go to your new channel by clicking on your avatar from the main page of the IGTV App.

Step 3: Click the + icon in the right-hand corner to add a new video to IGTV.

Step 4: Select the prerecorded video from your camera roll.

Step 5: Add a title and description.

• Just like on YouTube, you’ll want to add in any relevant keywords to your description to make it easier for people to find your videos on IGTV. This also includes hashtags and tagging other Instagram accounts. Great news, IGTV now offers autofill suggestions for both.

Step 6: Add links if applicable. Viewers will actually be able to click on links in your description and be taken outside of the Instagram or IGTV app. So, this is a great place to link to specific places on your website that may relate to what you are covering in your video.

Step 7: Add a cover photo.

• You can upload your own custom cover photo, or choose a thumbnail from your video. The cover photo is what will show up on your channel page and in the IGTV categories, so make it catchy!

Step 8: Share your IGTV video to your Instagram feed. 

• Instagram has the option to share a 1-minute preview of your IGTV video to your Instagram feed to allow more people to find your IGTV content.
• Move the slider button to green to opt-in to IGTV Preview. Then a preview of your IGTV video will appear in your follower’s feed, and the cover image will appear in your profile as a post. You also will have the ability to adjust and choose what these images will look like.
• When you post a preview of your IGTV video, the title and description will copy over to the caption and you may want to update this to make it fit better into a post format. Just keep in mind that any links you included in your description won’t be “clickable” in feed post – just in the actual IGTV section.
• This also means that if a video you are posting on your feed is longer than the 1-minute limit of Instagram posts you will have the option to post it as an IGTV and leave the first 60 seconds teaser as a post!

Step 7: Post your IGTV video.

• Congratulations, you’ve just uploaded your first video to your IGTV channel.

Step 8: Monitor the post.

• Just like any Instagram post, you will want to continue to monitor and respond to questions and comments posted by followers.

IGTV Requirements

Video Length

• Videos must be between 15 seconds and 10 minutes long.

Video File Type

• Videos must be in MP4 file format.

Aspect Ratio and Video Size

• Videos should be vertical (not landscape) with a minimum aspect ratio of 4:5 and a maximum of 9:16.
• The maximum file size for videos that are 10 minutes or less is 650MB. The maximum file size for videos up to 60 minutes is 5.4GB.

Now that you have the tools, it's go time! Get a content list created and start filming. There is no better time than now and the more you do it, the easier it becomes.