Can your brand grow through Instagram Reels?
Short answer: yes, but with a few caveats. Read on to learn →
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In the last year since the launch of Instagram Reels, there have been a large number of creators who skyrocketed from the sub-10K follower range well into the 100K+ range.
For example, Anmol Raina recently announced on his new YouTube channel that he grew from 4K to 124K in three months just by posting Reels every single day.
And he can’t be the only one. It’s absolutely wild.
The reason for this is more or less simple: this combination of great content and the Instagram algorithm pushing Reels almost everywhere it could — the feed, stories, explore page — is the main driver of this stratospheric growth.
However, can this kind of growth also be achieved by brands as opposed to creators?
In this article, we’ll learn about what is “good” Reels content, relatability vs. aspiration, and whether your brand can ride this wave or not – and if not, what can you do.
What is “good” Reels content?
Good Reels content is fast →
If you scroll through the top reels in your feed, you’ll see that the best, most viral ones, have no “dead air” in them. They contain fast-talking, fast motion, and quick cuts to get to the point quickly.
You can sense that the “energy level” is just one notch higher than the usual feed post.
Good Reels content redeems at the end →
This means that the best part of your video, the most important tip you give out, the thing that makes you laugh the most, gets you shocked the most is at the end of the video.
The reason for this is that it gets people to watch your video all the way to the end. Audience retention being high gives the almighty algorithm a strong signal to push the content further to more people.
Another side effect of this is that it increases the replay rate of the reel so that if you missed the redemption the first time, you can catch it again. 🚀
Good Reels content is not overly polished →
Peter McKinnon does a great analysis of shooting + editing with your phone vs. doing it with a professional camera and lighting, and how the phone style is more relatable. It’s a really interesting video to watch.
He says the reason why Stories are so successful on Instagram as opposed to feed posts is that Stories are rawer, more direct, and more relatable.
This is a mistake that a lot of brands make on reels and stories. When viewers watch stories or reels, they expect something more authentic, raw and direct – not something overly polished with great lighting and background blur.
Keep in mind that shooting with a phone is not the only way to make it “less polished” — this also includes just… being yourself. Putting captions, that automated text-to-speech thing from TikTok, anything to make it look like content that is made by a creator as opposed to the polished look of a brand.
Good Reels content is relatable →
It’s 2021. People today care more about relatability than about aspiration.
This is why, as mentioned before, stories are more popular than feed posts, and Reels are taking over the home page.
This is why, it might just be better to shoot something with an iPhone as opposed to a professional camera – so that when people view it, they feel like it comes from a friend. That’s why even brands like Balmain and Louis Vuitton are shooting reels with phones.
Relatable content can also mean showing things, places, actions, visuals, words that connect rather than distance.
Are Reels only for creators and not for brands?
This is the big question. I think — absolutely not.
Today, just like individual creators take up brand personas, brands can take up creator personas.
I wrote an article about Moment Lenses a few weeks ago, about how they have a YouTube channel that's very similar to that of a creator — I can totally see Reels working for a brand like that.
The key is to take up a “creator persona” — where the brand is not front and center, but the value you bring to viewers is front and center, and the brand is low-key powering it all.
Posting one-off campaigns every now and then can bring you increased views/brand presence/reach but in order to achieve real growth on Instagram through Reels, it’s important to be consistent – consistently valuable, or consistently entertaining.
This is hard to do when you’re posting brand-related content or campaigns every week unless those campaigns are extremely entertaining even without the context of the brand.
Put face(s) to your brand
It might make sense to have some people from your team be the “face” of your brand on Reels – these would be the ones personifying the brand as a creator. They could be internally part of your social media team, or you can hire someone specifically for this if you have the resources.
Nik Sharma recently even said in his newsletter, in the context of TikTok, that he thinks it’s worth taking $4-6k a month and invest it into a creator that can take out 1-2 videos per day. Because even if 2 of these videos “pop” the creator pretty much pays for themselves and makes you look like a “cool” brand.
I think the same can apply for Instagram Reels as well.
Partner with creators instead
If you don’t want to spend the time, energy, and resources to create reels for your brand, you can take another approach and find great content creators on Instagram (there are many, you know) that can create your reels for you.
These could be your ambassadors. I wrote a detailed article on finding ambassadors for your brand last week — I highly recommend checking that out.
The way you could do that would be to reach out to a fixed number of creators that you know are great with reels on IG, send them your product, and encourage them to make a reel if they like it.
And if you like the content they create, you can ask them to create another reel that you’ll both post as a collaboration on Instagram — definitely one of the coolest features they’ve released recently.
Otherwise, you can just post the reel directly from your brand’s account. There are many ways to slice it, but the key is that you’re not using your ambassador/influencer just as a way of distribution but also as a source of high-quality content creation.
Wrap up
Reels are incredibly powerful, and not enough brands are taking advantage of this. This is why, if you move fast, you can have the first mover’s advantage on it.
You don’t even have to make the content yourself — you can partner with creators that are talented at reel-making and have them make content for your brand.
Shameless plug: you can use Ubu to find these creators for your brand to make great reel content! Check out our website and book a demo, we’ll show you how :)
It’s not very hard — what are you waiting for?
See you next week!
— Mayank from Ubu
Very interesting !!