Instagram Reels 101

Instagram is currently one of the largest social media platforms there is. It is also the best platform to grow your business on. They just have so many features that you can utilize. One of those features is their Instagram reels. If you have ever been on TikTok, you already have a good idea of what they are.

Reels are portrait-oriented videos that can go up to 90 seconds in length. You can record and edit those videos within the app. You can scroll through Instagram reels just like you can with TikTok videos and there’s also an algorithm that caters to content that you like. They’re popular because of how addicting it is to scroll through and watch all these videos that are in your interest.

If you know a thing or two about social media marketing, you should already know that these reels are going to be the biggest impact on your growth on Instagram. Just note that if you choose to avoid doing reels, you are making a mistake and you are missing out on a lot of growth. But you also can’t just make reels on a whim and expect it to go viral overnight. Some people are lucky and it could happen to them, but it’s better to be prepared and know the basics of Instagram reels before posting them.

How to Get Attention and from the Right Audience

There are tricks to marketing your reels. The idea isn’t to just go viral with the entire internet, it’s to make a big enough presence for your niche and target your potential clients. You don’t want your reels to play in front of just anyone, you need to find people who can actually be interested in the offers that your business provides.

Some would say that hashtags are dead, but it’s a myth going around in social media. The only people saying that are people who don’t know how hashtags actually work. When you use hashtags on your Reel content, it triggers the algorithm and tells it that your content is relevant. It helps match your reels to someone interested in your niche, so you want to use hashtags specific to that niche. You can also explore through hashtags to engage and hint to the algorithm that you belong to that niche.

If it’s not through hashtags, you can use trending songs to add. You can tell what songs or sounds are trending in your niche by looking on the bottom left-hand corner of the reel and seeing whether there’s an arrow (↗️) because that indicates that it’s doing well for people in your niche.

Another way to get more views for your reel is to tag others that are associated with it. That way you can end up appearing to their followers. Don’t forget to share your reels on your stories and on Facebook. You want to use as much free promotion as you can. And it seems like a hassle, but you want to post reels often and find out the right time to do so. The little things are what is going to bring in those views and exposure.

Reel Elements

Creating reels doesn’t have to be hard, but you should be strategic in the process of creating them. Be consistent and stay on the topic of your niche. You want to be clear with your content on what exactly you do. But there are times after you’ve gained considerable attention, when people in your niche are just interested in your personal life, so it’s totally okay to sprinkle a little of that for reel content.

There are elements that make some reels stand out from the rest. Instagram users tend to love educational, entertaining, or relatable videos. On top of all that, make your reels interactive. A call to action is something you should just include in practically everything. Get your viewers to engage with your reels because it makes it more enjoyable for them to see your content.

Take the time to educate your followers on what you do and how you do it. Behind-the-scenes footage is a huge catch for the majority because it’s fascinating and it shows your knowledge and expertise. Including text on your reel forces a lot of viewers to actually pay attention to the subject of the matter, but for some reason when you add a face in a reel, those videos just happen to perform better.

Tools for Reels

After knowing how to create and set up content for your reels, what to put in them, and how to bring in the views, you need to get to know some of these tools that will make your reel posting process much easier. Have you been wishing that there was a way to schedule your reels like you can with posts? Well, now you can!

Instagram is constantly making updates to optimize the app for easier use for its users. So you can actually use Facebook’s Creator Studio or Business Suite to schedule your reels like you can with your regular posts. This saves an incredible amount of time.

Sometimes coming up with your own content for reels can be a pain. Luckily, Instagram reels allow you to remix and stitch with other users’ reels. You can react to one of your inspo reels or you can incorporate it into your reel and duet it. When you don’t feel like coming up with something yourself, you have the chance to bounce off other people’s content and it’s actually great for exposure if those reels are performing really well.

Another part of reels that can be a pain is editing it. Here are a couple of apps that we recommend that can make the process easier and more enjoyable:

• Capcut
• Veed.Io
• iMovie

Check them out and let us know what you think about them.

Monetizing reels

Lastly, you need to know how to monetize your reels. Because, come on, making money is rarely a bad thing. The most common way of monetizing them is when Instagram incentivizes influencers by giving them bonuses for their reels. But it has to make a minimum of 1,000 viewers (which is pretty achievable if you do them right).

A popular way of monetizing your reels is making deals with brands. If you have a follower base, you can partner up with brands to promote them on your reels. And those videos will do even better when you are honest with your audience and inform them with a simple #Ad. When you learn how to properly monetize your reels, you are also growing your business in the process.

Conclusion

So now that you know all the basics of Instagram reels, you can utilize this knowledge to build that brand of yours. Reels shouldn’t be overlooked because they bring a huge chunk of exposure and awareness to your brand. You can have fun with them, and with all the useful features Instagram provides, they are easy and you can make some money off them too.

Have any other questions about Instagram reels? Ask in the comments!

And if you need help strategizing what types of content you can post on reels, check out our Marketing Day.