A few weeks ago Instagram rolled out it’s latest feature- Instagram Reels. The videos are nearly identical looking to TikTok and have been a great way to grow on Instagram lately. When you have a public account and post a reel, it pushes the content out through the explore page, giving you the potential to get a ton of views and increase your reach with people not following you.
So what kind of content should you post?
IG reels started off at 15 seconds max, but you can now make videos up to 30 seconds long. While the 30 second option may sound appealing, you are much more likely to captivate your audience with just 15 seconds.
The important part here is to captivate your followers with the first 2-3 seconds so they can continue to watch.
So how do you captivate people to watch your reels? Don’t tell the whole story all at the beginning, leave people hanging and wanting more so they continue to watch and see what the next frame is going to tell. Reels need to tell a story or showcase a variety of different things in one to appeal to users. A few popular trends I’ve seen are:
- TikTok challenges that have now moved to IG reels
- Fashion/outfit reels showcasing multiple outfits
- Reels that tell a story frame by frame to show a story unfolding
While posting content within your niche is important, it is also okay to venture off a bit and try new things. Reels can work in every niche and get creative with how you showcase yourself and your story.
Tips for posting
Adding text to your Reel will captivate your audience if you are trying to communicate a message. Think of what you want to say and add just a few words per frame to leave people wanting more.
Also note that while adding text into an upper/bottom corner works for stories, you need to center the text a bit so it actually shows up in the frame when the reel shows up in someone’s feed. I see a lot of people posting text in their reel too low and I can’t see what it says. It may take you messing around with it for a bit until you get it right. I deleted my first reel immediately after posting when I realized the text would not show in feed.
Add music to your reel to help grow on Instagram and add creativity and expression to your reel. Songs work much better than original audio for multiple reasons. You can actually get discovered by the song (similar to TikTok) and Instagram will show you which songs are trending at that time so it really does all of the hard for you.
How reels can help you grow
Other than using the music feature to get discovered by new accounts, there’s a few other reasons that reels can help you grow.
Popping up on the explore page is one of the best ways to get seen by new accounts and Instagram has really been pushing video content before photo content these days. Also, since people are able to scroll through videos quickly, it leads to a lot of people turning to explore to watch videos as well. Make sure your profile is public and toggle show on feed so that you know your content will get pushed out on the explore page.
Get ahead of the game
With Instagram coming up with so many new features all the time, the best way to get ahead of the game is by experimenting with these new features early. Instagram puts a big emphasis on featuring content that is utilizing new features so its a great way to grow.
