Social media is an essential tool for marketing your brand or small business, connecting your brand with a very large audience faster than ever before. But when you want a robust social media presence across platforms, it can be hard to share and reshare content from one account to another.
YouTube is one of the world’s most visited websites and has over 1 billion active users. When brands create videos to share on YouTube, they may also want to bring them over to other video-hosting sites—like Instagram.
To help you spread your brand’s presence across the web and drive engagement with your content, here is everything you need to know about how to post a YouTube video on Instagram.
The Benefits of Cross-Posting Between YouTube and Instagram
While Instagram and YouTube are wonderful tools for marketing your brand individually, they can be even more valuable when used in tandem. This is where the benefits of cross-posting between platforms come in.
Cross-posting is when you share the same post or content across multiple platforms without changing it. It sounds very simple, but it is actually very useful when it comes to social media marketing.
Benefit #1. Reach a Wider Audience
Cross-posting between multiple platforms is a great way to reach a wider audience and leverage existing content across the web. You can also encourage engagement across platforms by using targeted calls to action inviting users of one platform to follow you on another.
By uploading the same video to your brand’s Instagram account, you get more attention on the same content, which raises your chances of converting more of those viewers to customers and inevitably earning more profits for your business. It can also boost your ROI on each video by using them to their maximum potential.
Benefit #2. Keep Your Social Media Presence Active
Cross-posting is also a good way of keeping all of your social media platforms active, even when you’re not actively creating new content.
Instagram and YouTube are the two most popular platforms today—so being present and regularly active on both is key to building lasting relationships and staying relevant to modern consumers.
Step 1: Download Your Video from YouTube
Currently, Instagram does not allow videos to be shared directly from YouTube onto their platform. Therefore, unless Instagram decides to change this, you must take some extra steps to post one video across both platforms if you don’t have a dedicated video production company to help with this.
First, you’ll have to download your brand’s existing video from YouTube. The steps to do this will vary depending on whether you are using a computer or a mobile phone.
For Mac and PC:
- Find a YouTube downloader website
ClipConnector, Zamzar, and OnlineVideoConverter are good options for this, but several others are available on the web.
- Paste Your Video’s URL into the Website’s Input Box
This allows the downloader website to find the specific video you want to download.
- Select an Appropriate Video Format
We recommend converting the video to a .mp4 file extension, as this is the format that is generally used on Instagram.
- Download the Video
Depending on which downloader website you use, it will either give you the option to download the converted video file directly to your computer or send you the file in an email.
For Android:
Android users should have a wide range of YouTube downloader apps available in the Google Play store. Unfortunately, most of these apps are not free, so it might cost you a few dollars to use this option. Each of these apps should come with further instructions for you to follow.
For iPhone:
- Install the Documents 6 App
Once you have installed it, use its web browser to access the website Savefrom.net.
- Copy the URL for the YouTube Video
You can do this by finding the video in the YouTube app, clicking “Share”, and selecting the “Copy Link” option.
- Paste the URL into the Savefrom.net Input Box
- Execute Download
After selecting the appropriate file size, click “Done” to initiate the download.
- Locate the Downloaded Video
Find the video you just downloaded within the Documents 6 app and move it to your Camera Roll.
Step 2: Edit Your Video and Convert the Files
Instagram won’t allow users to upload videos that are longer than one minute in duration. For this reason, you will need to edit your video content down to make it shorter.
Luckily there are many different kinds of editing software available for Mac and PC which can help you accomplish this. If you are using a mobile phone, you can try video editing apps like iMovie, FilmoraGo, and Videoshop.
Remember to use mp4 files with H.264 codec, and make sure the size is 1080 pixels by 566 pixels because this is the format that will work on Instagram’s platform.
Step 3: Post Your Edited Video on Instagram
Once your video has been downloaded, converted, and edited down, it’s time for the final step: uploading it to your brand’s Instagram account!
All you have to do to post is click the plus sign icon within the app and then select the video from your Camera Roll.
Since your primary purpose is marketing your brand, be sure to include relevant tags in the description so you can be sure to reach as wide an audience as possible. Don’t skip this step—these tags and this description are how Instagram determines if your video is important enough to show on a follower’s feed.
And that’s it! Just click to post, and you’re all done!
Conclusion
Cross-posting your brand’s YouTube content to its Instagram page is an effective social media marketing strategy that can help you draw in more business.
Now that you know how to put a YouTube video on Instagram, you have a new way to share your videos on this popular platform. However, you still might not have the resources to create high-quality videos that convey your brand’s message, or you may be unable to keep up with a regular crossposting schedule.
Our team at Slice can help. Get in touch with us today and we’ll help you create professional and traffic-boosting videos for social media—and post them, too!
