Instagram Freerunning Content Opportunity Analysis™ Q2 2022

Key Takeaways

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The freerunning space can find content opportunities in Q2 2022 from:

Extreme Flips. Landing Spectacular Flips: Videos of athletes landing spectacular flips or attempting flips in unusual locations. Top videos included James West doing a double backflip on grass and Cherepko Semyon flipping over a cliff.

Parkour Slides. Be Like Water: Videos of athletes sliding across floors or gliding down railings. Top videos included Storror’s “Be Water” video series, which featured athletes sliding across a smooth building floor, like water. 

Parkour Hole Challenge. Every Hole is a Goal: Footage of athletes jumping through small spaces such as a garbage shoot, a hole in a fence, an opening in the trees or a building lattice. 

Wall Tricks. Off the Walls: Videos featuring athletes using walls to help execute epic flips and/or twists. Top videos were posted on PKFR TV and featured a group of men lifting a tricker up to perform a backflip off a building wall and Viktor Sokur using a wall to perform a combination of flips. 

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Content Opportunity Methodology

1. Measure & Categorize. Sample a large number of social posts to find ones that are significantly outperforming the average.
2. Identify Top Themes. Identify the themes that are resonating most with the audience by sorting the themes by their aggregated performance metrics.
3. Identify a Benchmark. Identify content themes that are performing above and under an average benchmark for the industry based on views & engagements.
4. Identify Opportunities. Look at the data and find the content themes that are resonating with the audience based on a set of top creators.
5. Repeat For Each Platform. Repeat the analysis for every platform that matters to your brand and audience to find platform-specific opportunities.

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Instagram Content Bucket Definitions

• Slow-mo Jumps: Slow-motion videos of athletes attempting extremely long or high jumps. 
• Drops & Descends: Videos of athletes descending or jumping off buildings or walls.  
• Trick Vote: Videos show various tricks/stunts and ask viewers to vote in the comments which one they liked the best.
• Rooftop Parkour: Extreme footage of athletes practising parkour on rooftops. 
• Extreme Flips: Videos of athletes landing spectacular flips or attempting flips in unusual locations. 
• Parkour Slides: Footage of athletes sliding across floors or gliding down railings. 
• Wall Tricks: Athletes using walls to perform epic flips and twists. 
• Tac 180s: Videos of athletes pushing off one block to get more height, rotating 180 degrees, and jumping to another obstacle. 
• Pylo Jumps: Hops and jumps minimizing contact with the ground during landing and takeoff. 
• Movie Teasers: Clips and snippets from professional parkour films to promote upcoming releases and premiers. 
• Competition Promos: Videos promoting parkour competitions and contests.
• Rope Sessions: Athletes using ropes in urban settings to perform parkour stunts.  
• Parkour Hole Challenge: Athletes attempting to jump through small openings in urban settings. 
• Urban Tricking: Athletes performing acrobatic moves, such as flips and twists, chained together in combos in urban settings.

*Instagram Content Opportunity analysis only includes Reels that were shared on the creators profiles. Outlier videos omitted from analysis included the following:  1, 2, 3. 

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The freerunning Instagram content whitespace opportunities include:

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Instagram content that is the most competitive due to its popularity and high competitor saturation in the freerunning space include: 

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Content to avoid due to low attention and high competitor saturation in the freerunning space include:

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Content to ignore due to low attention and low competitor saturation in the freerunning space include:

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Whitespace Opportunities:‍

1. Extreme Flips

Landing Spectacular Flips. Videos of athletes landing spectacular flips or attempting flips in unusual locations such as a side of a cliff or onto a horse. Top videos included: 

• James West doing a double backflip on grass
• Cherepko Semyon flipping over a cliff

Tactics to Implement:

• Create Hype: The two examples shown on the left use music synchronized with the flip to build up the viewers’ excitement.
• Reels: In Q1 2022, Instagram Freerun reels generated 18x more engagement and views than feed video posts. Invest in creating reel content, as they generate a much greater organic reach on Instagram relative to feed video posts. 

Top Format:

• Type: Reel
• Video Length: 4 sec. & 7 sec.
• # of Hashtags: 7 & 5

7M Views

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1M Views

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2. Parkour Slides

Be Like Water. Videos of athletes sliding across floors or gliding down railings. Top videos in Q1 2022 were from Storror’s “Be Water” video series which featured athletes sliding across a smooth building floor, like water.

Tactics to Implement:

• Keep Doing Works: Storror shared the video on the left in February, which generated 6M views. A month later, Storror went back to the same location to “level up the slides” and shared the video on the right, which generated 778K views. Look at what type of stunts perform the best and try levelling them up or recreating it in a different setting. 

Top Format:

• Type: Reel
• Video Length: 7 sec. & 26 sec.
• # of Hashtags: 4 & 3  

6M Views

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778K Views

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3. Parkour Hole Challenge 

“Every Hole is a Goal”. Footage of athletes jumping through small spaces. Top video content featured athletes: 

• Plunging through a garbage shoot
• Diving through a hole in a fence
• Clearing an opening in the trees
• Flipping out of a building lattice 

Tactics to Implement:

• Teaser Reel: Both examples featured clips from new or upcoming YouTube videos and encouraged viewers to watch the full video in the caption. Tease YouTube content on Instagram with a reel using short clips from the full video and a CTA encouraging viewers to watch the full version in the caption. 
• Alternative Angles: The video on the right shows the jumps taken from two different angles. Try incorporating various angles.

Top Format:

• Type: Reel
• Video Length: 15 sec. & 7 sec.
• # of Hashtags: 3 & 3  

1M  Views

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159K Views

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4. Wall Tricks

Off the Walls. Videos feature athletes using indoor, outdoor, or gym walls to help them execute epic flips and/or twists. Top videos were posted on PKFR TV and featured:

• A group of men lifting a tricker up to perform a backflip off a building wall
• Viktor Sokur using his bedroom wall to perform a combination of flips.

Tactics to Implement:

• Rate the Trick: The video on the right encourages video engagement by asking viewers to rate the trick from 1 to 100 in the comments. 
• Hashtags: Of the freerun videos analyzed on Instagram in Q1 2022, videos with 5 hashtags generated the most views and engagement on average, followed by those with 7 hashtags. 

Top Format:

• Type: Reel
• Video Length: 15 sec. & 11 sec.
• # of Hashtags: 7 & 5  

849K Views

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449K Views