Beginners Guide: Instagram Reels in a Nutshell for Small Businesses
Updated: Jan 29, 2023
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If you are trying to get more followers and engagement on Instagram, you should start creating reels for your business.
Instagram has recently done major updates on how videos are handled and it will have an influence on everyone.
New videos can only be shared as reels, making reels almost indispensable for any business
Starting in July 2022, new video posts shorter than 15 minutes will all be shared as reels. This makes reels almost indispensable for any business.
This is a great improvement as now all your videos (or reels) will get a lot more visibility and engagement than before. Let's talk about that later in detail.
If you're not yet familiar with the basics of Instagram reels, this quick guide will help you get up and running quickly.
Let's jump to the topic without further ado.
1. What Are Reels?
Photo by Hookle
Instagram Reels are simply just short full-screen vertical videos. They come with many unique editing tools and can include for example multiple video clips, interactive backgrounds, captions, filters, and stickers.
Quoting Instagram: "Reels are entertaining, immersive videos where you can creatively express your brand story, educate your audience, and get discovered by people who may love your business".
Unlike Instagram Stories, Reels don’t disappear after 24 hours. Once you publish a Reel, it’s available on Instagram until you remove it.
Reels are simply just short full-screen vertical videos
So how does it work? Well, simply you as a business create and publish short reels, which then will be discoverable across Instagram and on your Instagram feed.
It's good to remember, while creating reels, that people come to watch Reels to participate in cultural trends, collaborate, and discover new ideas. Keeping that in mind, you can create way better Reels.
2. Where do Reels Appear on Instagram?
Photo by Hookle
You can find your reels on the reels tab of your Profile (1). Reels on your feed are visible for all your followers.
Especially using the right hashtags is a great way to tell the Instagram algorithm to pay attention to your post.
Your video (or reel) may also be discoverable in Reels (2) for anyone to explore. How it's discoverable depends on the Instagram algorithms and hashtags you have chosen for your reels post. Especially using the right hashtags is a great way to tell the Instagram algorithm to pay attention to your post.
3. How to Create Reels?
To keep it simple. There are basically two main approaches to making reels:
1. Just shoot: This is the quickest way to start with reels. We'd recommend this for most brands just to get started, and later you can be more creative. Simply, record a short video and publish or schedule it right away.
2. Be creative: This takes a bit more effort since you need to plan and build your reels in a creative way. This may include adding effects, texts, audio, etc. You can also edit your clip for example by trimming or adding other clips. There are also great templates available to start with.
So how to create a Reel in practice?
On Instagram, just click the plus
and start recording your Reel (or upload content from your camera roll)
Photo by Hookle
Reels can be recorded in a series of clips (one at a time), or all at once. As this is a quick guide, we don't dive into details now. But if you want to know how to use all features and cool effects, we'd recommend you to watch this awesome short video tutorial for beginners.
Make a reel that shows your audience how your product or service looks when being used
You should make reels that show your audience how your product or service looks when being used. Don't focus on the product itself but on everything else around your product while creating the reel.
Show off your favorite products, offer styling tips, show things behind the scene, and tell customers why they're worth purchasing from you. You should creatively express your brand, may it be fun, entertaining, or educating - only creativity is the limit here.
4. How to Publish Reels?
Photo by Hookle
Before publishing, it's important to pay attention to a small but important detail - saving the reel.
You can save your reels within the app using Save draft, but you'll lose them if you log out or uninstall Instagram. It is therefore a good practice to save reels to your phone's gallery/drive (1), allowing you also to schedule them later. However, there is a limitation that you cannot save audio unless it's your original.
After you're done creating the reel, just add a few hashtags, click Next and Share (2). Right before publishing, you have a few options - such as you can choose if the reel is visible on your feed and tagging people.
5. How to Schedule Reels?
You can also schedule the reel to be published at a later time using scheduler apps. Just select the saved reel and schedule it using such an app.
You can also schedule the reel to be published at a later time using scheduler apps
This is a handy way to save time, as you can share reels to all your social channels in one go.
6. Three Examples of Brands Using Reels
We've selected a few examples below just to give you an outlook of what reels might look like. There are many more on Instagram, and creation gets even easier if you use Instagram templates!
Example 1: cobblestones_and_wells
Photo by cobblestones_and_wells on Instagram
This is a textbook example of very simple but engaging reels by the Cobblestones and Well. They create cool reels while renovating their 17th-century home with views of the English countryside.
With such simple reels along with amazing views, you can reach lots of audiences and get easily new followers.
Example 2: Glamnetic
Product marketing doesn't require any fancy lightning or equipment.
In the video below, Glamnetic uses a simple setup to promote its makeup corrector pen. Use this as an example and make your videos quickly home made!
Example 3. Penguin Books
Sometimes you might not be sure where to start with Reels? Chill out.
When hesitating, just keep it simple like below a great example from Penguin Books.
This carousel highlights how to create a simple Reel with photos. Featuring also followers in your content serves as a way to show your customers love. Maybe they will also share or mention your page in the future.
Simply using different photos is an excellent way to ease into creating social video!
Source: Penguin Books on Instagram
7. Publish Reels to All Your Social Channels in One Go
Video by Hookle
Small businesses must maintain a strong online presence in many different channels so that they can maximize the reach of their target audience.
Social automation tools make it easy to schedule reels as videos across multiple social platforms in one go
Social automation tools not only make it easy for small businesses to schedule reels on Instagram but also to share reels as videos across multiple social platforms in one go. A handy way to save time!
One great example of such a tool is Hookle. It's a mobile app, which makes it especially handy on the go. You can schedule posts, videos, and Reels as well as monitor the performance of all your platforms with one tool.
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