How Your Business Can Take Advantage of Instagram Reels
You’ve probably heard this before, but I’ll make sure you hear it again: Video is the future. Over the past decade, video has gone from making up 68% of all internet traffic, to eating up 80% of our bandwidth.
Nothing exemplifies this take-over more than Tik-Tok, a platform where users share short videos with one another. Tik-Tok was a huge success: Not only did its user base grow massively (it was the most downloaded app at the beginning of 2019), it also had the highest engagement rate per post (yes, higher than Instagram’s!).
In response to this considerable success, Instagram has launched its own video platform, Reels, where users can set 15-second video clips to a soundtrack of their choice.
How can your business take advantage of reels?
Sure, reels are limiting: what are you supposed to do with 15 seconds? But in today’s world of busy people and low attention spans, less is more. And despite the time constraint, there is a lot you can do in 15 seconds.
1. Behind the Scenes
Create authentic, behind-the-scenes content to show your unprofessional and imperfect side. Show your fans or potential customers what it’s like when you’re at work (it’s time to show off that cool new office and the fun environment). You can even go as far as taking videos of you and your colleagues having fun after work.
The key takeaway here is that, in a professional environment, it might be difficult to show your more personal side. With Reels, you can keep posting professional content normally while adding a more human dimension in 15-second snippets.
This will let people see the real you instead of just the professional you – strengthening the bonds you have with your followers.
2. Educate!
People love learning, and one of the keys to success has always been providing value to your followers. In the past, educational carousels were a great way to keep your followers hooked and engaged.
Short tutorials via reels can fill the same niche. You won’t be able to upload long, extensive lessons, but this is a good thing. If you keep your explanations short and to the point as well as focused on a single topic, you’ll not only save time, effort, and money, your viewers will also appreciate your content all the more because it is so digestible.
Your viewers will love you for your great content, which in turn will make the algorithm love you as well. It’s a classic win/win/win!
3. Showcase your Products
There is no better medium to tell a story online than video. People love videos and they are perfect for telling the story of your product or business and to introduce people to your product. Use this opportunity to really express your passion for your business, viewers will pick up on it and become fans.
Some concrete ways you can showcase your products are:
- Show your product in use.
- Explain how to use your product (if applicable).
- Upload video testimonials (these are super powerful).
- Instagram Takeover. Have influencers create video content of them using or recommending your product.
- Use Reels to promote or introduce a competition people can enter to win a free product.
Make sure the content is not too sales-heavy but also enjoyable. The more people genuinely enjoy your content, the more interested they will be in your product. And that’s what it’s all about.
Best Practices
Avoid long captions. No one will read a long caption reel; it won’t show up fully anyway. You have 15 seconds to say your piece, don’t let it spill over into the caption. The videos are short for a reason: people have a short attention span.
To really hammer in your calls to action and key points, include them in both your audio and text overlay.
Get inspired by popular brands in your nice. Learn from what works for them and what doesn’t. Also, if applicable, jump on popular trends (especially music-wise) in order to increase your reach.
Warning! You can’t change your caption once you’ve uploaded your video – you’d have to delete the video and reupload it. You would lose all engagement and traction that video had and, even worse, show your followers the same video twice.
Recommend Reading: Sustainable Advertising Utilizes the Interplay of Google and Facebook
Conclusion
Video is big. Tik-Tok was huge. You might have missed the train, but thanks to political movements, data breaches, and Zuckerberg’s ruthless opportunism (we mention this as a good thing), you have a second chance to strike while the iron is hot.
This is your chance to take advantage of a platform that has billions of users (all of Instagram’s current users) but relatively little competition: Not everyone has already shifted over to creating reels, giving you a potentially enormous organic reach.
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