In addition to your regular feed posts and stories, it’s time to start using the latest features provided by Instagram. Reels are a cost-effective way to promote your business on Instagram through high-quality video content that will drive users to your page. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, announced at the end of 2021 that the social platform would be placing a greater focus on video features this year. As a business using social media marketing, it is important to stay up-to-date on new features, changes and trends to ensure successful engagement with your audience. Let’s dive into Reels and how they can transform your company’s presence on Instagram.
What are Reels?
Reels are fun and engaging 60-second videos that include audio, text, effects, and stickers. Reels are exclusively video-based and have their own tab within a user’s profile and feed. Reels complement your content strategy in addition to posts, stories, IGTV, and shop.
Using Reels to promote your business
Reels are a great way to create engaging content to form a greater connection between your company and its audience.
Here are a few strategies your business can use with Reels:
- Educational content
- Behind the scenes
- Product or service launch teaser
- Play off of a trending challenge
- Showcase products and services
Understanding the Instagram Algorithm:
The goal of Instagram’s algorithm is to surface content that users are most likely to enjoy and engage with. Reels were recently launched, so the algorithm has been favoring this new content over traditional videos. In order to understand what users enjoy, the algorithm pays attention to these factors:
- Do they watch the video all the way through?
- Did they like the Reel?
- Did they save the audio to create a future Reel?
Be consistent with posting Reels among your regular posts. Posting a few Reels per week grabs the algorithm’s attention and boosts its visibility.
How to effectively use Reels
- Always post high-quality videos. Did you know that you have to manually change a setting on Instagram to post the best quality content? Here is how to set High Quality Uploads:
Launch the Instagram app → Tap on your profile → Tap the three dashes in the right-hand corner → Select Settings → Choose Account → Select Data Usage → Enable High-Quality Uploads
- Create your business’s take on a popular trend. Make the information entertaining and easy to digest.
- Use background music. Different audio is always trending. It is a great idea to research trending audio because there is likely a popular sound that aligns with the idea for your Reel. If you are using TikTok as well, keep in mind that popular sound trends on TikTok may differ from what is trending with Instagram Reels.
- Keep both the text in the video and the caption short. Reels are meant to be easy to grasp.
- Increase views by having an eye-catching thumbnail that will grab the user’s attention.
- Share your Reel on your story after posting. This increases the likelihood of your followers viewing it.
- Include meaningful hashtags. Using hashtags on Reels is just as important as using them on feed posts. Hashtags help Instagram know who to serve your Reels to on the explore page.
Each social media network is constantly changing, which means we should be growing our skills and expanding our knowledge along with them. Reels are a great way to continue boosting your engagement and visibility on Instagram.