Images, GIFs or Video: Which works Best on Instagram?
Images, GIFs
or Video: Which works Best on Instagram?
In the last few years, Instagram has
come up with ample changes to its algorithm, and with the arrival of so many
updates, it demands you to change to your overall Instagram strategies too.
Most of the brands and businesses have already started working on
re-formulating their content strategy on Instagram, and deciding on the right
proportion of images, GIFs and videos to post.
So, what works best images, GIFs or
videos? Should you continue focusing on posting images or wish to make a shift
to GIFs or video content?
Maybe it sounds a bit disappointing
to you, but there’s no black and white here. You can’t rely on either image or
GIFs or video content when formulating an Instagram strategy.
The big players in businesses
generally prefer to post a healthy mix of images, GIFs and videos on Instagram,
and it works pretty well for them. Of course, exceptions are always there like
BBC News, which generally post an unusually high amount of video content than
images. It’s all up to you and your niche that what suits your business best
images, GIFs or videos or a mix of all.
However, for most of the brands, it
makes sense to utilize a mix of images, GIFs and videos and keep changing the
posting strategies based on the responses they get from their followers.
Another important aspect to keep in mind is that images, GIFs and videos are
used for different strategies in order to get the best outcome, depending on
the targets or goals of the brand or business. Let’s learn more about it in
detail:
Images:
When it comes to harnessing quick
engagement and if we consider the general statistics, then image posts work
much better than video or GIF posts. Image-based posts get significantly more
likes than video-based or GIF based posts, which suggests that image posts are
easier to interact with for users than any video post.
However, the engagement of an image
post isn’t very long-term, so it’s going to be a numbers game to a certain
extent. Businesses need to post high-quality images, and at the same time, they
need to make sure they’re posting enough of them every day for the engagement
generated to convert into followers and customers.
Videos/
GIFs:
GIFs are more or less considered as
videos when it comes to posting on Instagram. It becomes a bit hard to generate
engagement from videos/ GIFs posts. Also, it takes a lot more resources, effort
and time to make a video than to create and post images.
Most Instagram users are more likely
to just double tap on an image they find appealing than watching a video or GIF
as it is time-consuming. This proves that the engagement of videos/ GIFs is
short-term in comparison to images. However, don’t jump into any decision that
image posts are a winner here. This is because although the videos/ GIFs fail
to generate as much engagement in terms of likes, on the other hand, they tend
to get more comments than images.
Thus, in most niches, having a
healthy mix of images, GIFs and video posts would work the best.
