How to share a YouTube video on Instagram 

Are you a YouTuber who’s finding ways to promote their YouTube channel and are looking for ways to promote your YouTube channel? 

YouTube was originally created as a platform for anyone to post any video content they like. There are over one billion users on YouTube, which is nearly one-third of everyone on the Internet. Did you know that you could share a YouTube video on Instagram? Here’s how!

Why should you share your YouTube videos on Instagram?

First let’s know why people need to share their YouTube videos on Instagram. 

To make an Instagram teaser post for your Instagram page: Since YouTube videos are generally long, you can post a trailer video in the form of a reel or an IGTV to your Instagram page. Make sure your reel gives your audience a clear idea about the type of content you post on your YouTube channel. It could be a travel vlog, food vlog or an educational video. You can post this video on Instagram before posting it on YouTube and make your audience curious to see the YouTube video. Making a trailer video will give your audience a sneak peak into it and get a lot of views after you post the video. 

Create your own compilation: A YouTube compilation is a montage video assembled from the best parts of other videos. Compilations can be of sports highlights, fail videos, Vines, or anything else. Each clip adds to the total of the compilation and makes sense with the other clips. If you have a lot of YouTube videos you can compile them and make a short video to post it on Instagram. You can take short parts of all the interesting parts of your videos. By doing this, you are making a promo video for your YouTube channel and the audience who like your content will start watching and subscribing to your YouTube channel. Instagram is the best app you would use to promote your YouTube channel. 

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How to share YouTube videos on Instagram?

Step 1: Download your YouTube video- if you want to post a long video which is up to 10 mins you can do it by posting an IGTV video. An IGTV lets you post a video as long as 10 mins while a normal video could be up to 60 seconds maximum. An Instagram story lets you post up to 15 seconds. But the drawback of stories is that they will disappear after 24 hours. You can also post your YouTube videos URL code on your Instagram bio. According to YouTube’s policy, it is perfectly okay for you to download your own videos. To do that, you’ll need the help of a website. You can use websites that allow you to download your high-quality YouTube video by just posting the URL of your video.

Step 2: Crop the video- Instagram has some size rules that need to be followed to avoid your video from getting cropped. In an IGTV you could post a video as long as 60 mins. For videos less than 60 minutes, it should be 3.6GB maximum. Your video should be in MP4 format, and your IGTV video dimensions should be 1080 x 1920 pixels or an aspect ratio of 9:16, which is the same size as Instagram story dimensions. Use whichever editing platforms you have at your disposal to crop the video to fit that timeframe. Posting a video on Instagram’s feed requires your video to be either square (1:1) or vertical (4:5) in size while posting it as a Story or on TV requires it to be portrait (9:16) in size. Instagram feed posts can either be square (1:1) or vertical (4:5). Always go with the vertical size! It takes up more space on a user’s screen and boosts your chances of people watching it before scrolling past. There are a lot of good apps or websites that allow you to crop your video in the size you prefer. Inshot, Beecut, Clideo, Animaker etc. 

Inshot: The InShot app is a video editing and a creating tool that is easy and convenient to use. It lets you crop, trim, speed up, or add filters to your videos. It is designed to improve the final touches of your uploads.

Beecut: BeeCut provides almost all the important features regarding video editing and it is extremely easy to use as well. BeeCut provides most of the features free of cost. BeeCut Online Video Cropper is a web-based service based on a browser, which means you can easily crop the video on any Windows or Mac computer by opening the browser webpage.

Clideo: You can crop any clip that you have stored on any device via a web browser, for free. Here you can alter it to any required dimension, meaning your clips can be prepped for both an Instagram Story or the regular feed. 

Animaker: It is a free website and super easy to use. Animaker lets you edit videos upto 20GB in size. 

Before you spend too much time editing your videos on these platforms, it might be worth inquiring whether the platform’s logo will appear as a watermark when you use the free or limited edition. To get the watermark removed, try going for apps that are not free as they provide more facilities than that one that are available for free. The purpose of watermarks is to protect content and to claim ownership of an asset. Without watermarks, valuable digital assets can be susceptible to content theft or unauthorized use.

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Video cropping name and sizes:

FB portrait- 4:5

Square-1:1

Landscape- 16:9

Portrait: 9:16

Facebook cover- 21:9

Facebook Landscape: 5:4

Step 3: You are all set to post your video on Instagram. 

In Instagram, tap the Plus button that is in between all the icons. (Post)

Select your video and tap Next. You can add filters to the video or increase and decrease the brightness the way you prefer. 

Type in your caption and tag people or the location. Do not forget to use hashtags that say something about the post. This is the easiest and often way people use to find the videos they want to watch. This will direct them to your video. Hashtags are keywords related to your content that you can include in your posts.

Tap Share. 

Instagram has become an integral component of any marketing stack. You can also consider promoting your Instagram page. A promoted post is definitely a step up from a non-promoted one. It can increase your brand awareness, boost vanity metrics (thus providing some good social proof), and help you to direct traffic where you want it to go. 

Try tagging pages that repost your videos. If you see that there are many Instagrammers like you creating and posting content similar to yours, be sure to tag them when promoting your video. 

Instagram can be used for giving your audience a little sneak peek of what is about to come. YouTube and Instagram have cemented their legacy as two of the biggest social media networks to ever exist.

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How to post a YouTube video on Instagram story as link

You can only post a YouTube video link on your Instagram stories if you have about 100,00 followers on Instagram. If so, you will have the unique swipe up option on your Instagram that lets you post the link of your YouTube video. 

It's clear that this feature has resonated with Instagram's base, and businesses can leverage it to drive awareness and engagement with their audiences.

The Instagram Swipe Up feature allows Instagram users to add a link to an Instagram Story. Users who view the Story can simply "swipe up" to open the link.

Before this, make sure that you have 10,000 followers or a verified account.

When uploading to your Instagram Story, click the icon at the top right

Click "+ URL" to add a link to a web page. For this, open the YouTube video which you want to share and copy the link. 

paste the URL link into the text box.

Click "Done" in the top right.

After doing this you can post the story. Now, your published Story has a "See More" Swipe Up link. This will direct your story viewers directly to your YouTube video. This is one of the best ways to get their attention and views. 

If you have less than 10,000 followers, you can direct people to the link of your YouTube video by posting it to your bio or ask them to DM you for the YouTube video link. 

Short-form content is more popular on Instagram because of the audience’s low attention span and the popularity of bite-sized content. Posting reels can really help you drive traffic to both your Instagram as well as your YouTube channel. You can also try posting a BTS (Behind the scenes) video that may get your audience eager to watch your videos. 

Now you are all set to start posting your YouTube videos on Instagram!