Reels are where it’s at right now. Whether you binge-watch them, send them to your bestie, or actually make them yourself, if you are on Instagram, you have seen how big of an impact the video feature has had on the app.
Currently, in 2022, reels are hands-down the best way to grow your engagement and build your community. If you're not using them to their full potential, you're missing out on a lot of opportunities for growth. In this post, we'll share some of the best hacks for Instagram reels that will help you create more engaging content and earn you more engaged followers.
If you haven’t already done so, first, check out our previous article on the 101 of making a reel here . It literally teaches you how to make a reel from start to finish. Then come back here and learn how to take your reels to the next level to increase your engagement and outreach.
How to Make Your Next Reel High-Quality Just because you have uploaded a reel does not mean it will perform well. You want to maximize visibility in order to increase engagement and outreach! So what are some practical steps you can take to make this happen?
Trending sounds and music: If you’re uploading Reels with no trending sound in the background, you're majorly missing out on some quick and easy outreach. You can come back to the creatorsinternet.com homepage every week, where we shared the trending audios for the week.
You can also earch for trending sounds through Instagram’s audio section itself or do an investigation of your niche competitors and see what trending sounds they are using in their recent videos that have the most engagement. Always save those sounds for later. You can even find playlists of trending music on Spotify.
Regardless of how you decide to test trending sounds in your reels, you need to utilize them. Even using very faint trending music in the background of a monologue-type video is a great way to increase discoverability.
Jump on bandwagons: Content trends are popular for a reason. You should be searching not only for the most popular sounds, but also for video trends within your niche.
Once you find some trends you can vibe with, add your own creative twist to them that you feel your audience will respond to. You always want an obvious connection between the trend and your niche and your unique message to your community.
Use Hashtags: Hashtags can be amazing for SEO. Hashtags are not dead, however there is a lot of information out there on how many to use specifically. According to @creators 3-5 hashtags are recommended, however @instagram recommends 8-15.
Overall what we have seen work is - Less is more - using all 30 hashtags is confusing to the algorithm because they will be closely aligned.
It’s like going on a job interview and telling the hiring manager the 30 reasons why they should hire you, that never happens. They want you to give them 3-5 of the best reasons why. Those reasons they will remember and those they can develop a thorough analysis on you.
Hashtags are not always consistent, you have to determine what works for your account. Hashtags aren’t ever going to hurt your account. So for some people, they will see the most engagement with 3-5 hashtags, some niches see more success with 15 hashtags and some might max out on 30 and get the best results.
You want to use hashtags that still hold day-to-day discoverabilty - so not excessive competition but still solid viewership. So think of hashtags that are specific to your overall niche and the content you’re posting that have 25,000 - 50,000K posts.
It is simply preference and personal testing for your account at this point on the gram. Take time to research popular hashtags in your niche that are not over-saturated. You may think just using hashtags in and of itself is enough, but only using generic hashtags makes your content less likely to be found.
Take, for example, the fitness niche on Instagram. There are currently 1.5 million photos associated with the tag "#fitness."
If someone is scrolling through the hashtag itself, the odds of them finding your post are extremely low. Instead of relying only on generic hashtags, think of something directly related to you! Maybe you love practical and sustainable fitness. The tag "#fitnessgram" only has 430K posts, which is amazing because it's small enough to rank and large enough to be discoverable.
Your chances of getting found are much higher when using a niche-related tag, which, in turn, gives you the opportunity to own that space as you grow!
So don’t stress on hashtags, do what creates the most engagement and growth for your account. Focus on producing quality content, engaging content, and educational and fun topics.
This means you need to be consistently testing hash groups in order to achieve your personal ideal hashtag number for your account. We love to use Flick for this.
FYI - you can put hashtags in the comments or at the bottom of your post, we have found it doesn’t affect your reach negatively or positively where you place them. It's also important to note that Instagram will not show you which hashtags are performing well if you are using more than about 6. If you keep hashtags minimal, in analytics, you can see which tags are driving traffic and should continue to be used and which ones might need to be adjusted.
Catch your audience's attention: As a society, we have extremely short attention spans, especially on social media (does anyone remember 6-second Vines??). This means the first couple of seconds of your reel can make or break you getting a like, a save or a new follower. So, include an attention-grabber early on, whether it be a text on the screen, or some verbal "clickbait," reel your audience in. Your content gets favored when more and more people watch your reels all the way through, so keep people interested.
Implement creative transitions: Even though reels are short, they can honestly get boring. Utilizing video cuts and transitions helps keep your viewers interested. You don’t have to go crazy or reinvent the wheel. Look at what other creators are doing in your niche. What strategies are getting the most engagement? Take advantage of those ideas! Things like the "alignment" feature in the app itself can help you make seamless transitions that look complicated. Work smarter, not harder.
Don’t forget the caption: Using commonly searched keywords in your video description is another straightforward way of increasing SEO. In your niche community, what are things commonly searched or asked for? What do people want to learn more about? What are the top 3 goals and desires of your community? How can you provide a means for them to achieve those through the information you can share? Add these key value props to your captions. Keep your captions natural-sounding and relatable whenever possible.
Include community CTA: A great way to increase engagement is to facilitate it. This could be as simple as adding a "read below for more information" or "share your thoughts in the comment section." Really, anything that gets your audience thinking and participating is always the goal. You must tell them exactly what you want them to do next.
Conclusion The verdict is in, and it’s unanimous: reels are the way to go for audience growth and engagement. Start creating some video content gems today! And if you need help getting started, make sure to check out our book, The Micro-Influencer’s Brand Partnership Bible . It’s packed with tips and strategies for creating successful partnerships with other brands – which can be a great way to monetize your reel-making journey.
