Instagram has decided to remove the button located on top of people's feeds and directed people to IGTV, its long-form video hub, because people barely use it.
Instagram quietly removed the IGTV button, which was previously located next to the direct-message arrow on the top right corner of the app. The photo and video-sharing social networking service admitted in a statement that users were not clicking on the button and were discovering videos using other methods.
A spokesperson from the Facebook-owned firm said: "As we've continued to work on making it easier for people to create and discover IGTV content, we've learned that most people are finding IGTV content through previews in Feed, the IGTV channel in Explore, creators' profiles and the standalone app.”
"Very few are clicking into the IGTV icon in the top right corner of the home screen in the Instagram app," the spokesperson admitted.
Instagram launched IGTV in 2018 in an effort to compete with YouTube by allowing users to post vertical videos. Depending on the number of followers a person has, the length of the videos could reach a maximum time of one hour.
Prior to IGTV, people were only able to post videos on Instagram that were 60 seconds or shorter. However, the adoption of IGTV has been challenging.
According to analysts, IGTV hasn't been as successful as the Stories tool and high-profile celebrities, including Kim Kardashian West, who were supposed to produce content for IGTV, are not really creating much content using the feature.
Some social media influencers argued that a big reason IGTV hasn't been popular is because they could not make money from the feature while on YouTube, similar-length videos can include ads that generate revenue for creators.
Furthermore, TikTok, a video sharing app, has also overshadowed IGTV in terms of popularity and according to Apptopia, it has been downloaded approximately 700 million times in 2019. On the other hand, IGTV has only recorded around 6 million downloads.
Despite the button being removed, users will still be able to view IGTV content on a standalone app, in people's feeds and through an IGTV button on the Explore page.
