Using Flipagram to Make WTW videos for Instagram
I just love Senior Style Guide and it's community! Chelsy Weisz reached out to us and shared how to use the Flipagram app to make 'What to Wear' videos for Instagram! I mean, videos are WAY cooler than just posting 1 image, right?! Here are her tips, as well as a video explanation!
"We have all heard over and over how important Instagram is to our marketing when talking about Senior Photography. Often times I find myself running short on images to use during my down months in cold North Dakota. I’ve been posting What to Wear images on my Instagram and blog for some time now, but have wanted to get more out of the short time my image is assigned in the endless scrolling of my potential client’s Instagram feed.
What to Wear Instagram videos, have been an amazing new way for me to get new clients excited, and educated about their upcoming session. I’ve been using Polyvore for my what to wear blog post for some time now, but I just recently found the Polyvore Remix app, and I’m loving how easy it is to use, especially when it comes to videos for Instgram! (Polyvore Remix is currently only available on IOS, but the same concept can be achieved using the regular Polyvore app)
If you haven’t already set up an account with Polyvore go ahead and set one up - its free! It is an awesome way to keep up with the latest trends!The first thing you will want to do is decide what you want to showcase in your video. You could showcase anything from spring looks, fall scarfs, how to wear red, and different looks you can get from the same pair of shoes. The possibilities with Polyvore Remix are endless!
My most current [and latest] creation with the Polyvore Remix app shows off trendy summer time sandals We are just getting into the sandal wearing weather here in North Dakota, so this works great for my target audience! Once I find the perfect piece that I want to work around, I click it, and that is when the Polyvore Remix app works it's magic. This is when it automatically generates complete, four piece outfits base around my main piece! Once the app continues the outfit building process I can select all or some as my favorites. If I don't like any of them or want more choices, I can simply click remix to generate more outfits.
Once I have favored at least 7-10 outfits, I go back to my faves, enlarge the photos, and screenshot each individual image. I will go to my camera roll, and crop each image. I want to make sure that I don’t have any text, lines, or arrows in the final image. Now comes the fun part of putting the video together! I use Flipagram. There are quite a few different apps you can use, but this has worked pretty well for me, so far. I have paid $2.99 in order to remove the Flipagram watermark, so the only branding my client sees is the one I want them to see - mine! Once the app is launched, just click the + at the bottom of the screen to make a new video. I add all of the images that I just screenshot and cropped, and import into Flipagram. You can adjust the crop ratio of the image to either making them fit the screen (showing the entire image) or cropped square. You just want to make sure that you don’t crop off any of your outfits.
Next, I pull my logo that I already have saved into my dropbox and add it to Flipagram. I typically have the logo appear at the end of the video. In this tutorial we will stick with the simple way of creating it with your phone.
Now that we have all the images picked out, cropped and added into Flipagram, it is time to add text. I use DipTic for this part. My branding is very black and white, literally, so I often will just use a black background with white text. After typing in my text, I just screenshot it and crop the image in my camera roll.
Now we will add the text images to Flipagram and place them wherever you want them to show in the video. One really nice thing about the Flipagram app, is that you can duplicate images from inside the app! #thankyou! You can choose to just have text at the beginning or scattered throughout the video. I chose to scatter the text throughout the video for this project.
You should now have all your images added and it's time to set the speed of your video. Flipagram has taken the hard parts out. It gives you the option to set it to Instagram's exact specifications at 15 seconds long. It's music time! I like to use audioblocks.com for my music. I really like that you can filter the results with a specific sound, mood, or feeling, and it pulls songs that will fit what you want! It is pretty spendy, and honestly if you are just using if for these types of videos, it is probably not a great investment. I work with video throughout my business so it has really been a great investment. While Flipagram does give you the ability to use songs directly from your iTunes library, it can be risky. I personally stay away from anything that is not royalty free. (I wouldn’t want them using my images for marketing their song without paying me!)
Lastly, you want to preview your video, save it, and then post it to Instagram! If you're interested in checking out more of my videos that I have created go check out my Instagram @chelsyweisz. We just rebranded from @creationsbychelsy, so feel free to check out our older posts over there as well!
Here is the video we created together. https://instagram.com/p/
Holy wow, thank you so much for sharing this, Chelsy!! Such GREAT content:) I'm sure that videos are going to be filling our Insta feeds now!-Megan