Will IGTV Be A Problem For YouTube?
As you can tell, I write a bit about YouTube, especially with my YouTube PR series. The reason is that I find social media so interesting. After all, social media is a huge balancing block for public relations, litigation, and crisis communications. These three interests of mine really brings up some points for discussion.
Recently, Instagram launched IGTV in hopes of encouraging influencers to bring their content to the platform. I think this is a very smart PR ploy for the app. As a blogger, Instagram was not kind to influencers in 2017. There was a lot of debate about Instagram's algorithm change and how it was affecting content. As a result, many people started using Instagram stories to tell their followers about their new content. I suspect that Instagram noticed how to expand on this change in order to keep influencers on the platform while bringing new ones in.
It's not new that Snapchat has been suffering as a platform. I think I started to notice a decline in users when Instagram announced Instagram stories. In my opinion, I think it was a direct rip-off of Snapchat's model. My opinion holds true for IGTV as it seems like an alternative to Snapchat Discoveries. However, I think Instagram has met its match.
So, will IGTV lay YouTube to bed? Of course not! YouTube is already rolling out more attractive features for influencers. Ultimately, Instagram was built as a visual platform and it should keep true to this core idea. I say this because YouTube gives creators the ability to link, edit, stream, and more. Instagram has yet to listen to influencers major demands such as having links in photo captions and offering the swipe up feature in Instagram stories for those who have under 10k followers. Instagram also just allowed users to post to Instagram from social media scheduling platforms. YouTube has allowed scheduling for far longer and you don't necessarily need a third party platform to do it.
Ultimately, it just seems that YouTube's interface is far more seamless and versatile than Instagram. There is nothing wrong with this and both platforms have their pros and cons. I think it will be interesting to see where IGTV will go, especially since it's eerily similar to Instagram stories, perhaps, if anything, it's more exclusive to top influencers.
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