Instagram was always built as an image-first app, so if you’re not paying to post, images can often be the best way to go.
Capturing attention on social media is a difficult game, and it continues to become more difficult as the market becomes more saturated.
It’s therefore essential to work out the best way to reach your target market. Hubspot recently explored the differences between images, gifs and videos on Instagram – and the differences in how audiences react to them.
Organic vs Paid
Let’s quickly look at this distinction. Organic content is posted in the same way as a layperson posts, and falls onto followers’ feeds naturally.
Paid content follows a different formula, and appears according to how the user pays.
Okay – so how do images, gifs and videos stack up against each other?
If you’re working organically, images can reach twice as many people as videos. Instagram was always built as an image-first app, so if you’re not paying to post, images can often be the best way to go.
Yes, a video can get you lots of engagement and interaction. You might find that a video, once in a while, can work better for you. But generally speaking, organic users are best sticking to images.
An important note for gifs: when you post a gif to the feed, it simply posts as a video. So as far as feeds are concerned, there’s no distinction between a gif and a video.
But there is one growing trend to consider:
“Something that has become popular … is subtle animation — a five-second animated image. It’s technically a video but visually closer to a GIF”
What about paid content?
Typically, the same rules apply. That said, it depends upon your target market.
With paid content, it’s essential to consider what exactly you’re trying to achieve. What is the purpose of your ad? If what you’re trying to achieve is best suited to video, then go for video. Otherwise, you should generally plump for images.
What about Stories? How do the different styles stack up?
Here, it’s harder to discern the differences.
It’s therefore tough to decipher what’s the best medium. But what’s essential is avoiding media that looks branded.
Instagram users tend to instinctively steer clear of anything which looks heavily branded. Instead, you should make your posts looks as natural as possible, especially on Stories.
“The closer it could look to everyday posts shared by friends, the better it will do”
All in all, the best thing to do is to make your ads look authentic, sincere and not overly ‘brandy’. Images are thought to work better than videos, but videos and gifs – given the right context – can be useful.
You should also think about the type of content that will apply to your target market – if you have an audience which, for whatever reason, will respond best to video ads, this can still be a good approach.