Instagram Reels are Meta’s answer to TikTok and over the past year or two, the platform has been significantly driving user engagement via this feature.
Creating good video content has traditionally been expensive and time consuming but that is no longer the case — it can now be done easily and dare I say, it’s even enjoyable.
I’m not a videographer but I’ve learned a few tricks over the years from a few “professionals” that I’m happy to share.
The Super Basic (Yet Effective) Way to Create Video Content
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Find something interesting to capture.
Don’t try and reinvent the wheel here — try and stick with the “classics” — babies, young kids, and pets all make highly consumable content. If you’re trying to showcase your business, make sure to include people — preferably crowds of them — engaging with your product or brand.
Try and resist the urge to include three minutes of nature shots from your last vacation or a long form video of you talking to your camera — I’m sorry to break it to you, but you’re probably the only person who will find it engaging.
A highly useful piece of advice is to observe your consumption patterns. What captures your attention and where do you find yourself going down a rabbit hole of mindless scrolling?
What types of accounts excite you when they drop new content?
Start to document accounts who you think do it well and “borrow” from them.
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Keep it short.
Keep your videos to around a minute and individual shots less than 3 seconds.
The human brain is a wonderful tool at processing visual information and it can figure out what’s going on so rapidly, sometimes a 1 second shot is all it takes to fill in context.
Still not convinced?
Next time you watch a TV show or commercial I want you to notice how long a camera shot lasts.
My guess is that it will be less than 3 seconds before it cuts to something else or a camera angle changes.
If the professionals are doing it, my advice would be to follow suit.
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Add in a soundtrack that evokes an emotional response.
Late 90’s and early 00’s indie rock has lately been my goto but don’t be afraid to experiment with tastefully curated selections from another era. Some low hanging fruit is more or less anything that has appeared on a Wes Anderson soundtrack.
By all means, avoid the royalty free soundtracks Instagram will try and push on you and dig a bit deeper into their catalog for something that resonates.
Pro Tip - Did you know if you set your Instagram business account to “Entrepreneur” as your profession, you can add pretty much any song you like to your reel?
Now it’s your turn - go create your own Instagram Reel and be sure to drop it into the comments or send it to me to check out.
Need some inspiration? Heres a few reels from our past season at Fresh Markets:
- https://www.instagram.com/reel/CTc1B7Rgz-w/
- https://www.instagram.com/reel/CXZogCrgfja/
- https://www.instagram.com/reel/CZ5P7bdDkUh/
Something that Contradicts The Above Advice
Atlas, my 6 year old, has been into making folding-surprise monster drawings (apparently this is a trend).
I recently captured this Instagram Reel of him demoing it to us and published it right before going to bed.
To all of our surprise, the next morning it had over 5000 views and over 700 ❤️s.
The moral of this anecdote is that sometimes content just resonates with an audience so be sure to not take any of my aforementioned advice too seriously.
I urge you to just keep creating and experiment until you find something that sticks for you.