Should You Be Using Time Lapse Videos On Your Instagram Account?

Instagram is going from strength to strength seeing it’s user base increase dramatically over the past year.

Some would say it’s THE current most popular social media platform for businesses and individuals alike.

With Instagram’s understanding of it’s content driven user base it has continued to expand what users are able to do. Until recently, users had been limited to sharing just 15 second of video but recently Instagram started allowing all users, not just advertisers, to upload 60 second videos!

As I’ve said before video on social media, when used correctly but sparingly, can really increase your brand awareness. There’s some great third party apps out there to get video into your Instagram posts.

Hyperlapse is one of these, the app’s been around for a while now and allows users to create amazing time lapse videos which utilise Instagram in-house stabilisation – smoothing out those annoying shakes and wobbles normally associated with time lapse videos.

Hyperlapse itself has a number of features:

• Shoot handheld time lapse videos on the go

• Automatic stabilisation

• Speed up your time lapse video up to 12x speed

• Share your videos instantly on Instagram or save them to your camera roll

• No sign-up or account required.

The idea is to be creative with it’s time lapse abilities so, depending on your business, your goals for Hyperlapse will be different.

Here’s just a few possible uses:

• Perfect for artists working in all mediums to show a small video of their art in progress i.e. glassblowing, pottery, sewing, cooking, cake decorating, gardening etc. It also allows you to share tips and tricks surrounding your art medium that are unique to yourself and valuable to your followers

• 360 rotation of a product or even time lapses of your product being made, used or a sneak peek unveiling of your latest product before it hits the stores

• Show off your local area, beaches, town centres, piers etc – great for holiday companies and individual tourism branches wanting to promote their attractions. Why not consider a first person viewpoint of your ride/attraction to give your prospect audience a taster of what they can expect

• If you’re hosting an event offer exclusive behind the scenes and virtual tours or even give your audience a front-row seat and show them how much others are enjoying your event.

The use of video and specifically time lapse video offers your business another engaging option on social media to promote your business, product, service or event. It’s important that you use it intelligently and as an integrated part of your overall social media campaign though – there’s nothing worse than posting random videos for no structured reason. Always think about what benefit or insight your video will have for your followers and if you can’t think of one – don’t post it!