At the end of June 2018 Instagram announced the addition of ‘IGTV’ to their platform. Can you believe that? That’s only 8 months ago. This new part of Instagram might have seem uninteresting to you but looking at the trend predictions for 2019, you shouldn’t neglect IGTV’s existence.

So let’s name a few of the predictions for 2019 regarding video:

• Long format video will win more popularity.
• Amount of portrait videos (instead of landscape) will increase, mainly thanks to IGTV, Snapchat and likewise platforms.
• Quality should be good but doesn’t have to be excellent: a little less will make your videos look more ‘authentic’ and ‘real’. Of course, be aware of the platform you’re publishing on. On YouTube, people still expect the highest quality you could possibly create. On IGTV, you’re allowed to be a little less perfect.
• Live streams will get even more popular. Especially younger generations love these.
• Subscription-on-demand-platforms (Netflix, HBO) are going to grow.
• 5G internet (which is extremely fast wireless internet) is becoming more and more common – meaning streaming video anywhere will also become more common.

What can you do with video in 2019?

There’s an increased popularity of influencers, vloggers and on-demand watching, but one thing remains the same: people love series. They always have. They love to ‘get to know’ a character or person and to follow that same personality throughout a longer journey. This was the case with the first soaps and is now happening with vloggers and series like GoT.

As socialchain.com writes about the popularity of vloggers: “It makes sense; vlogs are essentially a video diary. Who could resist the temptation to pour over the pages of someone else’s diary if it was offered to us on a platter?”. Keeping that sentence in your mind it becomes clear what you should do with video, right?

Look at your brand as a person that writes a diary. What does your brand think about? What matters to your brand? What does your brand scribble down at the end of the day in his or her notebook if he/she was asked ‘what’s the best thing that happened today?’.

Turn those things into video ideas. See some topics recurring? Then those are the ones you should go for. Turn those topics into your very own video series.

An example, please!

As always, I will try to give you an example. Let’s say you’re a coffee place in Amsterdam. What would you write about at the end of the day?

• The amazing people you met during that day
• The weird guy/gal that came walking in…
• The crazy story one of your guests told you about his/her country
• All the questions your visitors asked you
• How you had to explain 10 times what a Flat White is
• The amount of people that asked you for recommendations nearby
• How good the weather was today
• How busy it got around 10AM
• How often you had to name what cakes are available

Aaaaand so on!

See the topics? I do. Guest stories, guest questions and personal recommendations. 3 topics right there. So what if you would start 3 series on IGTV? Every Tuesday a guest story. You could ask the particular guest if you can film him or her. You don’t have to be live for IGTV, so you can upload it later – which is especially good if you want to make this a weekly-Tuesday-series.

Then maybe every Friday you would post a video where you explain your different kinds of coffee, and every Sunday you’d recommend something in the neighborhood. But not only would you recommend it, you’d go there and show it. So maybe the museum nearby, or a good viewpoint, or an interesting building.

What about live streams?

Live streams are great to engage with your audience. Viewers can send in questions as you are live which makes live streams the ultimate tool for Q&As. Besides that, social media users love the feeling they are ‘with you’ in the moment. They love the honesty and transparency that live streams offer.

So, the example of the coffee place in Amsterdam, could use the exact same topics also for their live streams. But they could also decide to go ‘live’ every Monday morning and answer people’s coffee questions. Or show, live, how packed their place is, or how a cake is being made.

To make those live streams a little bit better, it’d be smart for them to use a gorilla pod for their phone. These help you to create stable, non-shaky video with your smartphone. They’re not expensive (about €20) and definitely worth the money.

You can go live on Instagram, but Facebook is also very keen on brands that use live streams. Therefore I’d recommend to go live on both. Your fans on Facebook will even get a notification of you going live, so that’s a real benefit. You could of course also use YouTube. My advice? Use all of them if you can, but look at where your audience’s at. If they are engaging with you on Instagram and Facebook, then maybe also putting it up on YouTube is a waste of time. However you could always decide to just download your livestream afterwards and then upload it anyway: that takes very little effort.

In the case of the Amsterdam coffee place, this might lead to people looking for information about Amsterdam on YouTube, ending up at their livestream video. Which is, you guessed it, free extra promotion – so why not?

Did you enjoy this post?

I’m trying my very best to put out content that helps you, the owner, designer of manager of a hospitality brand, to bring your business to the next level. All posts on Tremento are created with hospitality brands specifically in mind. Articles talk about practical tips and inspiration for social media, design, photography and more. You can read the previous two posts about trends here. It’s about micro-influencers.

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