📺 Instagram TV - Slow Success or Flop?

It is true that Instagram has never failed with anything it has launched. But judging by the modest number of early accounts, IGTV, or Instagram TV, could end up looking like an abandoned theatre if the tech giant is not careful.

Although it is not yet a flop, IGTV has not been an instant success like Instagram Stories. Two months after launching in 2016, this format, a complete clone of Snapchat, had already reached 100 million users. Yet two months after launching IGTV, the Facebook-owned company is still keeping quiet about how the feature is performing.

> “It is a new format. It is different. We have to wait for people to adopt it, and that takes time,” says Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom. “Think of it this way: we have just invested in a start-up called IGTV, but it is small, like Instagram was at the beginning,” he explains.

It is certainly too early for a scientific assessment, and Instagram launched in 2010, so it is hardly a fair comparison. But looking at several accounts belonging to IGTV's creator partners, their feed videos are getting almost seven thousand times more views than their posts on this feature. If these people had early access and support and are still struggling, imagine what happens to ordinary accounts.

Creators and IGTV therefore need to work on building a regular audience. For the app, this is proving difficult. In the United States, despite reaching number 25 among the most-used apps and 2.5 million downloads on iOS and Android, it quickly fell to number 1,497, while weekly installs dropped by 94%.

Instagram still has a long way to go if it wants to win in long-form video. Entering the market 13 years after Youtube, with a vertical format that nobody quite knows what to do with, is hardly an encouraging starting point.

If it can avoid being forgotten altogether and offer creators the right incentives and flexibility, IGTV could give users a spontaneous video-viewing experience that Instagram lacks. Otherwise, we may be watching the decline of the next Google Plus, now a genuine ghost town.

A flashy but misleading start

Instagram held a red-carpet premiere on 20 June, hoping IGTV would become the next digital hotspot. The launch in San Francisco offered guests various kinds of avocado toast and mineral water, at an event aimed squarely at millennials. The American company had not held such a high-profile event since launching video posts in 2013. Balloon sculptures at the entrance, a room full of social media stars and executives set the scene.

But things were shaky from the start. Before launch, reports had already revealed the app's name and details. There were technical problems during the presentation, the launch was even brought forward, and details about the event appeared on Instagram's own blog. The internet already knew that IGTV would let people upload vertical videos up to an hour long and browse the “Popular” and “For You” categories.

The IGTV launch included custom doughnuts and highly shareable photo areas. Images via Vicki’s Donuts and Mai Lanpham.

Systrom, Instagram's CEO, even said he was very proud to be launching something completely new. “Vertical video, full screen and mobile only. This does not exist anywhere else,” he said.

The plan was certainly ambitious. Users were already used to making videos in that format on Snapchat when Instagram introduced its own version of Stories. IGTV had to start from scratch.

The app's boss sees the learning curve as a distinguishing feature, however. “One of the things I like most about this format is that (...) it encourages people to produce new things from the start. Even if the volume of videos is lower than what we see on the popular videos page,” Systrom explains.

Instagram pushed users to adopt this format but forgot to 'train' its Stories stars in entertaining an audience for five or 15 minutes instead of the usual 15 seconds. Nor did it convince Youtube heavyweights to deliberately film or crop their clips to match the way we normally hold our phones.

( IGTV's popular videos page is full of random viral videos, foreign content and very poor crops )

This should have been the real purpose of the launch party: to demonstrate the many ways of turning a somewhat restrictive format into unique content.

Vertical video frames people better than their surroundings, and its height allows a better connection between eyes and lenses. But the small amount of content and the assumption that creators would figure this out for themselves undermined even the chance that videographers might take a risk.

Now IGTV seems to be in trouble, with poor-quality viral videos badly adapted to the format in its popular section, mixed with a few users trying to create talk shows or cooking tutorials. Even an interview with celebrity Kylie Jenner attracted only 11,000 views.

Instagram wants to focus on the creator, not individual works of art. Systrom explains: “Because we do not have text search, and you cannot just search for something random, everything is focused on content creators.” “I think at this level the emphasis is on personalities and creators, which means we will have truly unique content that you cannot find anywhere else. That is the goal,” he continues.

However, being truly unique takes extra effort that users may not want to make, because they are unsure of the returns and reach they can achieve. Michael Sayman, who became Facebook's youngest employee when he was hired at just 17 to develop apps for teenagers and now works at Google, puts it simply. “Many times in my career I tried to make something unique and different because I felt it was the only way to stand out from the crowd. All I discovered was that these qualities made my products seem strange and confusing to users. Sometimes the best product is not new or different, but an improvement on something that already exists and has already proved successful.”

A fraction of feed video views

The main question at the launch event was where IGTV would live. Instagram announced that it would have its own app, but would also sit inside the main app, accessible through an orange button at the top of the home page that occasionally shows an alert for new content

Despite all this, nothing worked. IGTV did not benefit from a prominent position on Instagram's home page in the way Stories did. Ignoring the button and avoiding the separate app download, users continue double-tapping to like posts and scrolling through their feeds without encountering IGTV's longer videos.

The launch partners' viewing figures reflect this, based on six of those accounts and a comparison of their latest feed posts and IGTV videos that were more than a week old but less than six months old.

One of IGTV's partners is BabyAriel, the only one who has really seen growth on her account. Her monologues are getting around 243,000 views, almost a third of the views she gets on feed videos. She says she is happy, as the app is only just getting started, and thinks the format will be good for behind-the-scenes clips showing preparations for her Youtube videos and short Stories.

Lele Pons, the Latin American comedian and music star, is one of Instagram's most popular celebrities. She gets almost six times more views in the feed than on her IGTV cooking show. So far, her most-watched video has had 4.3 million views, less than half what she achieves with feed videos.

Again, this does not mean IGTV was a failed venture. It simply has not had the impact people expected, but Systrom remains optimistic about the invention of this new format.

YouTuber Casey Neistat is less confident. He says IGTV is not working and engagement is very poor. If views on this platform were higher than on Youtube, creators would move over, but so far the numbers are not inspiring. One problem, Neistat says, is that the content gets few views and makes no money.

In summary:

For now, this new venture has been defined by an unfamiliar format, a lack of guidance on using the app and its rather hidden location. Two months after launch, Instagram Stories was already a threat to Snapchat, whereas IGTV still poses no danger to Youtube.

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