It has been almost two years since Facebook launched the dedicated IGTV app for new long-form content. Since then, the app has gone through plenty of changes.
And now the standalone app has received yet another update, this time with a big change to make sure that creators actually using the platform get far more attention as soon as folks open the app on their iOS or Android phone. The Verge has the initial report today, detailing how the Instagram team has completely overhauled the homepage for IGTV, putting creators front-and-center.
The homepage will still be tailored to each user, so if you follow creators they will appear at the top making it easier to find their content when you open the app. The app will also show users creators it believes they will enjoy watching, hopefully boosting discoverability for creators and getting users to find more reasons to use the app. The report says that the IGTV app is also getting its own Discover tab, and a new hands-free recording mode.
In addition to that, previews are changing, too:
The company’s also issuing a small but likely impactful update to the Instagram app; users can post their IGTV content in their Stories, and instead of a freeze-frame, 15 seconds of content will play. This could get people to click through and watch the full video, thereby giving creators more views.
The IGTV app shows popular videos right now, but the Discover tab should help users find new content when they want. This change could very well be the most important one for the app, as long as it actually boosts engagement.
The last change related to IGTV actually happened in the standalone Instagram app. Back in January the Instagram team decided to remove the dedicated IGTV button that used to be in the top-right of the app, making it easy to launch videos from the app. However, earlier this year it was removed because it wasn’t seeing a lot of attention from Instagram users.
IGTV is available from the App Store for free.
If you use this app, are you excited about these changes? What else should the Instagram team do to boost engagement? Let us know in the comments!