This is your step-by-step guide on how to use Instagram Reels for your personal or business accounts.
Reels is Instagram’s response to the fastest-growing social media platform, TikTok, to stay competitive and relevant.
A reel is a vertical video having up to 60 seconds in duration.
Reels is a similar video format to TikTok along with almost the same features. The only difference is that TikTok is a fully functional app while Reels is embedded inside the Instagram app.
This blog will show you how to create Reels, how to attract more Reels views, whether should you buy Instagram followers or not, and more.
Keep reading.
Open the Instagram app and Navigate to Reels
First of all, you need to open the Instagram app and log into your account (if you aren’t already).
Then swipe right or tap the plus sign to access the app camera.
With the Instagram camera open, scroll down to Reels at the bottom and tap it.
Use the Instagram camera to record your Reel
Now you are in recording mode. You can record your video and can also add effects and features using the following tools:
Audio
You can add a song from the music library or can record your sound and attach it to the video to make it interesting.
AR Effects
Pick any of the effects available in the effects gallery. AR effects can turn boring visuals into engaging videos and keep the viewers watching your Reel.
Timer and Countdown
You can set a timer and record your video. You can go up to 60 seconds and not beyond that.
Align
You can add multiple clips to your Reel. Be sure to line up your current clip before adding another.
Speed
You can change the speed of video or audio as per your creative genius. You can make them faster or slower to bring an interesting vibe to the video.
Press and hold the capture button to record your Reel. You can record multiple clips and merge them into one Reel video, or you can use multiple clips from your camera roll to create your video.
Review your video and add text, drawings, and stickers to add more charm to your Reel before hitting the publish button.
Once you are done with adding effects, sound, and everything else, you can move on to the editing screen to add captions.
Share the Reels with users
Now you are almost there. Tap the Share to button on the top and then tap Cover to change the cover image of your Reel.
Here you have the opportunity to write compelling captions that tell the viewers briefly about your Reel video. This will give them an overview of the content of the Reel and help them know what value they can get from it.
Intelligent creators and marketers use this space to tell brand origin stories, mention behind-the-scenes processes and even use relevant hashtags to increase the reach of the Reels.
By default, Instagram will publish your Reel to the Explore feed. If you want to publish your video to stories instead, then you may tap the Stories button at the top.
An important question surfaces more often and that is, should you buy Instagram followers to grow fast on the app?
It has been becoming the favorite marketing technique for marketers and brands lately and it is helping them hit their milestones fast.
More followers will inspire the algorithm to push your content to a wider audience, growing your reach, visibility, and followers.
How the Reels algorithm works
With the unprecedented success and mass adoption of TikTok, leading social platforms including YouTube, Pinterest, and Facebook took notice and included similar video formats to their platforms.
Instagram doesn’t want to be left behind. Instagram Reels have performed impressively so far while the format is fairly infant.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, has openly expressed his ambitions to compete directly with the TikTok making Reels a flagship content format on Instagram.
An increasing number of brands and businesses buy Instagram followers to gain traction fast on the app and influence the algorithm to increase the organic reach of Reels and Stories across the platform.
Instagram has been very public and transparent while sharing what they are doing to bring changes inside the app.
They have also shared how the algorithm shows Reels to users on their Reels feed. Keep reading to know everything about that so that you can create viral Reels and grow your brand.
How Reels are recommended
Instagram, just like any other social app, wants users to spend more time on the app so that it can make money by showing them ads.
Instagram surfaces videos to an individual user feed that they might be interested in and possibly engage with.
So to accomplish that goal, Instagram algorithms have been trained to show Reels to users that they are more likely:
To watch in its entirety or a significant portion of it,
To tap the like button,
leave a comment by saying something about the content,
Check the audio in the video and create their Reel using that sound.
An increasingly popular strategy to grow faster on Instagram is to buy Reel views to attract more organic views.
This is because if users see a Reel in their feed that already has a lot of views, they are encouraged to watch it thinking there must be something interesting or valuable in the video.
Most important Reels signals
Here are the three most important signals that decide which Reels will be shown in your feed;
User Activity:
According to Instagram, user activity is considered to be the prime signal that helps populate a user’s feed with the most relevant Reel videos.
As obvious, the videos you have liked in the recent past will bring up more similar videos to your Reels feed. If you have liked a video on a certain topic, you will see more Reels around that.
Also, if you have engaged in a direct conversation with the video creator, you will more likely to receive suggestions with similar videos.
Reels Information:
Information about a Reel such as its popularity, the audio track it has used, and the overall content plays a big role in pushing similar Reels videos to your feed.
Creator’s Information:
Things like who is the creator of the Reel and how others have interacted with them in the past influence which type of Reels will be fed to your account.
Final Words
Reels are super popular right now, with Reels getting millions of views becoming a norm if you scroll through your Reels feed.
And this is a fact backed by the data that Instagram's audience is very active and uses their Insta feeds to discover new brands and make buying decisions.
This presents a fairly untapped opportunity to use Reels to grow your brand and audience on the platform and turn that into enthusiastic buyers.
If you follow the step-by-step process and actionable tips shared in this blog, you will eventually get your Reels to go viral - growing your audience and brand and bringing in sales as well.