All About Instagram Reels and How to Use It For Marketing

Instagram reels are undoubtedly the most interesting and trending things to watch on social media these days. From celebrities to influencers, and social media manics are rocking the world of Instagram with their powerful and engaging videos. This trend has made Instagram the fourth most popular social network, with 1.386 billion potential ad reach. Instagram users spend an average of 29 minutes each day on the platform, which speaks volumes about the growing popularity of the platform. Let’s take a look at how and why instagram reels have become so popular.

Instagram Reels are short videos wherein users can create and edit music-based video and photo clips, then share them on Instagram’s Feed, Stories, and Reels explore page. Previously, Instagram users could only upload videos that were 15 seconds or 30 seconds long; however, beginning July 2021, users can upload videos that are 60 seconds long.

Instagram Reels has a huge music library, which includes many current top singles from well-known musicians. Users can select catchy numbers from the immense availability of songs thus this has also become one of the reasons for its growing popularity.

When did Instagram Reels start?

Instagram reels was first released in Brazil on November 12th, 2019. On June 24, 2020, it was introduced in France and Germany. On July 6, 2020, Instagram reels was launched in India, making it the fourth country to have the application.

TikTok has been a huge hit in the first half of 2020, in India. With the outbreak of coronavirus, tensions between China and India increased and as a result, the Indian government banned Tiktok. Instagram launched Reels in India to compensate for the loss, which actually was a very smart move.

Later in August, Instagram introduced Reels  for iOS and Android in over 50 countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia.

Brief About Instagram Reels

Inspired by the roaring success of TikTok, Instagram came up with its feature that allows you to express a lot in a little. The timing was pretty convenient as it was around the time when TikTok was about to be banned owing to privacy concerns. As expected, this only added to its intrigue and increased the anticipation of its release.

Since 2016, the amount of popularity that it has amassed is phenomenal. Catering mainly to gen Z and younger millennials, the platform has more than 1 billion users worldwide. It is essentially the new Facebook. It is the perfect blend of entertainment and social learning. If used effectively, the platform can be a very good place to create awareness about any brand or business.

 

How to Make Reels on Instagram?

1. Formulate a Concept

Analyzing the most appropriate concept for your company or brand is one of the foremost steps for creating a reel. Also one  must focus on the form of information that will attract your target audience. After that, spend some time looking through the application to see what pictures, content, trends, and styles you can use as inspiration.

2. Creating an Instagram Reel

There are three ways to build and access Instagram Reels: 

• The Reels tab
• Your Instagram home screen
• The Instagram Stories camera

It’s preferable to create content with a 9:16 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1080 pixels by 1920 pixels. When you’re satisfied with the footage, click on “Preview.”

3. Add Additional Effects and Elements 

Instagram Reel Tools:

• Text: Extend your message by using text in your Reels. 
• Draw: To add some more flair, use the draw tool. 
• Stickers: Add captions, GIFs, the current time, and a variety of Instagram stickers. 
• Effects of augmented reality: Explore Instagram’s never-ending portfolio of augmented reality effects developed by Instagram and other creators across the world. 
• Filters: Swipe left to see filters that you may use to customize your Reels. 
• Audio: In addition to recording a voiceover or adding sound effects, you can add audio from Instagram’s music library at this step.

4. Share your Instagram Reel

Toggle if you want to share your Reel to the Instagram Feed from here. For maximum exposure, you must  share with Feed. 

Crop your profile image next, as this is how your profile’s grid will display the cover image. Add any content that you wish to add as a description for the Reel. Tap “Tag People” to add Instagram accounts to your Reel. 

Finally, press the share button.

Brands That Use IG Reels

Some of the biggest brands worldwide such as Balmain, Louis Vuitton, Sephora France, and Red Bull France included Instagram Reels into their marketing strategies way back in August. With almost every reel of Vuitton’s going viral and getting more than 5 million views, it turned out to be a huge success for them. In the same fashion, each of Sephora’s videos has garnered over 300K views.

Directions to Use

Upon opening the Instagram app, you can access the reels feature when you open the camera section, the option to create a reel is accessible from there. When you choose that feature, there are many options that one can select from. There are various editing tools you can choose from, such as music, effects, and timers. There are endless ways in which you can customize your video, that you can record in real-time or use a pre-recorded video.

When you’re recording the video, there is a bar on the top that shows how much time you have left. If you let go of the record button and still have time left, you can start recording again and the second part will start playing immediately after the first one ends. After you have created the video(s), you can also add some last-minute effects such as texts and stickers, the same which are available for Instagram stories.

Following this whole process, you push the content out and wait to see how it fares. It will be available on your page, in a section allotted to Instagram Reels. Not just on your page, it will come on the Explore page as well. Once it is out there, you can monitor how it is faring using Instagram’s Analytics function. Using that you can determine what works well with the audience based on how it is being received.

Do’s and Don’ts

Instagram put forth a list of do’s and don’ts to help all the content creators out there to produce quality content. Each  Instagram reel can be between 15-30 seconds long but what it doesn’t contain, is the hours that go behind those few seconds. The ideation, scriptwriting, and putting it all together is not easy. Just coming up with an idea can take hours as the time constraints that accompany reels is a challenge in itself. You have to make sure to put all the necessary information across in that short period. Some of the points in the list have been given below:

Do’s

• Keep the content as fresh and authentic as possible.
• Make good use of the music and effects available.
• Stay updated with the latest trends and events.
• Be as quirky and creative as you can.
• Try including a twist or a surprise towards the end.

Don’ts

• No content which includes graphic violence or hate speech.
• Absence of a good story.
• Don’t use music that is not a part of the music library without getting the appropriate license.

How Is IG Reels Different From Other Video Marketing Platforms?

In comparison to other video marketing platforms such as TikTok, Youtube and others, Instagram reels are currently making waves in the business. While they are catering to a particular demographic right now, they have shown a lot of potential. The feature is not just a replacement for TikTok but is proving to be much more than that according to the way it has been received.

Even though the ideation part can be taxing but when it does come to you and you have all the elements in place, Instagram reels can be put together pretty swiftly. Not only that, they are permanent fixtures on your business page as they don’t disappear after 24 hours as stories do. So, they can be used to segment your work so that whenever people visit your page, they can easily browse through them to get an idea about your work.

IG Reels for Marketing Strategy

Including Reels in your marketing strategy can be very helpful for you as they are all the rage right now. To create good content, you can always go over what your competitors are publishing and take inspiration from that. You can also take the help of Instagram Analytics as mentioned before to monitor how your Instagram Reels are faring with the people.

Try to create educational content so that you can deliver some sort of message through your videos and be entertaining as well. To get a head start, take the help of social media influencers to further your content as they already have quite a following and at least you can start from there. These Reels can be of various types such as testimonials, product reviews, and launches, etc.

Drive Traffic Through IG Reels

There are a few ways to make sure that Instagram reels bring in organic traffic which will help in boosting sales and awareness about your work.

How to Create an Outstanding IG Reels Content

• Make it educational so that not only will it be entertaining, it will be informative as well.
• You can use them to make product reviews as well as case studies to give a better understanding of your business or brand.
• Showing a little behind the scenes action also never goes wrong as it gives a deeper insight into your work and people can connect with it better.
• Tell your story, how you started and what made you want to start your company. Give your audience transparency.

Brands That Already Using IG Reels

Even though it faced a lot of criticism during its launch period, Instagram reels has been popular since the day it was launched. In India as well, production houses such as Dharma and Red Chillies, clothing platforms such as Myntra, music channels such as MTV, have begun using the feature to maximize their reach.

Conclusion

If you are in the marketing business, the most important thing to remember is that you should always be up-to-date with the latest trends. In the current scenario, the popularity of these Reels by Instagram is unbeatable. Therefore, you should make sure to include it in your marketing strategy as it is sure to bring in a lot of business. Since it caters mainly to the younger demographic, which also happens to make up the majority of our country, you cannot go wrong.