Long gone are the days when Instagram Reels was underestimated and considered TikTok’s smaller brother. Nowadays, Instagram reels are a valuable and super powerful asset, or should we say a marketing game-changer after the Instagram stories, that helps big and small businesses increase brand awareness and engagement.
However, creating these short videos takes creativity, and if you are struggling with it – you’re reading the right blog post because we will cover 15 Instagram Reels ideas to inspire you.
1. Take your followers behind the scenes
Taking your followers behind the scenes or BTS will satisfy your follower’s curiosity about how your products are made and what your work is composed of.
Chances are people wonder how things are done – so do take the time to share this with them. Creating such content will be a great way to start the conversation and learn more about each other.
For example, we can take the brand Shop Verie which shows how their campaigns are filmed behind the scenes.
2. Answer FAQs
It’s normal if your followers have questions; however, what will make you stand out if you make the time and the effort to answer these questions through reels?
Addressing your potential customer’s worries will show them you care and will ultimately show that you as a business are reliable and transparent about what you do – these two, in combination, will push people to purchase your product/services.
Here is a great example from the content creator and fitness instructor Syatt, who addresses one of the most common questions his wider audience has in his Reel.
3. ‘How to’ educational videos
Educating your potential customers about how to do certain things can be an excellent chance to attract more of your target audience. In this way, you will be able to create a stronger bond with them and share your expertise.
For example, we can take the brand The Inkey List that creates a reel to help their potential customers learn how to read an INCI list (or what is every cosmetic product composed of).
4. Reply to comments from your followers
Replying to comments with a reel is another great way to engage with your followers and educate them about a certain topic.
For example, we can take the small business called Wild Fire Water and their reel showcasing how their naturally dyed clothing line won’t wash away.
At the same time, they are educating, engaging, and raising awareness about a certain topic.
5. Introduce yourself, and your brand’s values, and tell a story (get personal)
Don’t be scared to be bold and share more personal information about yourself, your brand’s values, how you started what you started an Instagram business, and how you got where you are.
Doing this will help you create a strong bond with your followers in an authentic way, help you attract new fans, and even build more trust.
For example, we can take the brand Vitality, which sells fitness clothes, and its founder, who shares one of the brand’s key pillars – which is giving back.
6. Involve influencers
Chances are you are not hearing this for the first time – but working with influencers (big or even micro-influencers) and having them create reels for your brand is a super powerful asset and, of course, now a full-time job for many people.
The absolute main benefit is reaching and engaging with more people beyond your followers.
For example, we can again take the Vitality clothing brand, which collaborated with a fashion influencer to promote its clothing line.
7. Community and employee spotlight (meet the team)
Let your team members be in the spotlight and give your brand a face.
Doing so will help you build a stronger connection with your audience and the team since people will be recognized and given credit for what they are doing.
For example, we can take Verve, a clothing brand with a reel that introduced their followers to the Toronto team (who’s in it, and what are their roles).
8. Offer tips and tricks
As many people say – sharing is caring, and we couldn’t agree more.
Caring for your customers consists of a few parts, and amongst them is sharing tips and tricks about something you know best and, in that way, helping them do it themselves. Additionally, this will help you build trust and increase engagement.
For example, we can take Shayna’s Taylor account, which shares tips for growing long hair and her hair care.
9. Pack some orders/Unboxing some products
Nowadays, people are increasingly into transparent businesses, so showing how you do things (behind the scenes) is super important. One of the things you can show is packing some orders. This way, you can showcase your products, the effort you put into packing every order, and/or other aspects, such as eco-friendly packaging, more appealing packaging, attention to detail, and more.
For example, we can take the Mama Moments business that sells Self-care gifts for moms, so in their “pack order” reels – they showcase what’s in one of their custom boxes.
10. Checklists/Listicles
Checklists and listicles reels are a great additional way to educate your audience and take them through a certain process. There are versatile ideas you can cover with this type of reel, depending on what you are selling/promoting. You can showcase how you do things, showcase the best features of your product, showcase how you do groceries shopping (for the food industry), or showcase how you start your day; – the options are truly limitless. Choose a trending song – and go for it!
For example, we can take Productivity and wellness influencer Life with Hope, who shares tips about planning your work day ahead to be more productive.
11. Promote a campaign
Promoting a campaign with ads or social media posts is “soo 2009 ”. Instead, filming Instagram reels is the way to go in 2022.
Creating reels around a specific campaign will help you create awareness around that topic, reach significantly more audiences, and engage with people more effectively.
For example, we can take the way Chiara Ferragni brand promoted their #lovefiercly campaign with a series of reels oriented around love and what love means for different couples. The reels, together with stories (which are now placed in highlights), aimed to promote a limited fashion line called “Love fiercely”.
Extra tip: their marketing team also created a unique hashtag #lovefiercly which now has more than 45.000 posts.
12. Create seasonal reels
When lacking inspiration – you can always turn to creating seasonal reels.
What does this mean?
Well, chances are you do know about the seasonal Christmas campaigns done by Coca-Cola, or how about the pumpkin latte/ Halloween season “being taken advantage of” every autumn?
Think about how you can take advantage of the seasons in your location – and start creating reels. Utilize the seasons to help you promote your seasonal products/extra services.
For example, we can take Moleskine, which produces stationery products. In spring, they have a limited Sakura notebook Sakura collection, and with this reel – they are promoting their products uniquely and more engagingly.
13. Publish user-generated reels
According to statistics, user-generated posts on social media channels have a 35% higher engagement rate than branded content.
Moreover, 92% of the consumers trust recommendations from other people more than any other source.
Extra tip: with a tool such as EmbedSocial you could bring your user-generated content across your website too (here’s how). Wondering why – visitors spend 90% more time on websites that include UGC galleries and thesr type of galleries enforce the purchase decision for 10%.
If you’re still not creating Instagram reels with UGC – now it’s the time to start, and here’s an inspiration too.
For example, we can take The Inkey List, a brand we’ve already mentioned, and a reel created by one of their users about how to use certain products and the benefits that come with them.
14. Reels to announce sales, discounts, or giveaways
Increasing sales is the ultimate goal of every marketer – and the best way to do just that is by taking advantage of Instagram reels creation.
There is no feature or certain challenge to help you with this – simply choose a piece of trending song and go with the flow. Stay aligned with your brand’s value and messaging and create the reel to promote that sale, special discount, or giveaway.
For example, here’s a reel created by the brand Vitality to promote their birthday month. With a reel, they announced a 30% off site-wide, free shipping, and an additional 30% off on certain items.
15. Try and stay true to your values and showcase more of your personality
In a world of “copy-cats” – being unique and true to yourself is appreciated now more than ever.
Don’t be scared to try and experiment with reels relevant to your audience and who you are (your interests and what you are promoting). Being bold can take you amazing places.
For example, we can take Laura Haley with a profile description “your virtual work bestie” working in a corporate environment and sharing super unique and relatable reels.
She has created her own unique series, such as “How do you professionally say?”, “Rating people are out of office messages” or “The coworker who doesn’t respect boundaries.”
Best time to post Instagram Reels
Now that we’ve gone over the most engaging Instagram Reels ideas – it’s time we answer some other questions, too, and we will start with:
“When is the best time to post Instagram Reels?”
Although you might expect a simple “from-to” answer to this question – the answer is “it depends.”
Here’s how to figure out the best time to post for your business only:
- Find out where your audience is from – first things first, you must know where your followers are located to know their time zone.
This information can be found in your Instagram insights.
How to access your Insights Data
Simply go to your profile and tap on the “insights” button -> from there, tap on “total followers,” and you’ll be able to see your follower breakdown.
Here, besides the location, you can also see information such as age range and gender. Once you know the time zone in which your followers are located, you will approximately know your “posting time frame.”
- Evaluate your best-performing content – the next thing to do is analyze which previous reels received the most engagement.
This data too is also found in your Instagram statistics – meaning Instagram will suggest the best hours and days to publish reels based on previous results.
- Analyze when your competitors post – this is as simple as it sounds; if you’re having doubts, you can always take a sneak peek into what your competitor’s doing and when they are posting.
Trending songs on Instagram Reels
The simplest way to find the trending songs to use on Instagram Reels is to follow the official Instagram Creators’ profile.
This profile is a gold mine regarding the latest information, algorithm updates, news, guides, and amongst this – trending songs too.
You will find Reels Trend Report each week on this profile, with a roundup of trending songs, challenges, filters, and hashtags. If you don’t know where to start – this profile will definitely help you on your “reels journey.”
For example, here are the trending songs at the moment:
- Lucover – L$D
- “Muder she wrote”
- Sir mix-a-lot – “Baby got back”
- Beyonce – “Cozy”
- Oxlade – “CU LO SA”
- The Minions – “ I swear”
- Huddy – “All the things I hate about you”
- Tove Lo – “2 die 4”
- Tayc – “N’y pense plus”
- The Gregory Brothers -”Chirssy wake up”
- Mac Miller – “Love lost”
- Carterefe – “Machala”
Steps to create an Instagram Reel
Creating Instagram Reels is quite simple and can be done in five simple steps.
Here’s how to create Instagram Reels:
- Step # 1: Tap the “+” icon in the top right corner and choose “Reel”
- Step # 2: Select audio, length of the reel, speed of the reel, the layout, grid, scale, and timer.
- Optional Step: Select effect (you can search for one, choose from your library of saved effects, choose from trending, choose an effect from reels, or choose one according to appearance.
How to create Reels: choosing an effect options
- Step # 3: Record your reel according to the options you’ve selected or choose videos from your library.
- Step # 4: review your reel, trim, and adjust videos that are part of your reel. Additionally, you can add versatile stickers such as polls, quizzes, emoji reactions, GIFs, etc.
- Step # 5: Write a caption, tag people, and add location.
- Step # 6: share, share, share!
For all the details, check the full tutorial on how to create Instagram Reels.
Once you post, you can find them in your own feed of your Instagram account. Or navigate to the Reels tab that includes only the reels videos. Additionally, a wider audience can discover them in their Explore tab as part of Instagram’s efforts to expand the reach of the public content beyond the creator’s base.
Tips for creating Instagram reels that engage
We summarized a few tips that you might have in mind when publishing your reels, such as:
- Plan ahead: come up with a list of ideas or topics that you want to cover in your reel. This will help you stay focused and on track while you’re filming.
- Find your angle: what makes your content unique? What perspective can you offer that others cannot?
- Keep it short and sweet: reel videos are only 15 seconds long, so make sure you edit your content down to the most essential parts.
- Be creative with your transitions: smooth, creative transitions can help make your reel more visually appealing and engaging.
- Add music: adding a soundtrack to your reel can help set the tone and mood of your video. Just be sure to choose a song that is appropriate for all audiences.
- Film in vertical: since reel videos are meant to be watched on a mobile device, be sure to film your video in vertical (or “portrait”) mode.
- Edit, edit, edit: once you’ve filmed all your content, take some time to edit your reel. This is your chance to add some creative flair to your video, so have fun with it!
Key Takeaways
Thank you for reading through! Here is a summary of some of the Instagram Reels ideas you can take away:
- A day in my everyday life: show your followers what a day in your life is like, from morning until night.
- Behind the scenes: give your followers a sneak peek behind the scenes of your life or work.
- How to videos: teach your followers how to do something, whether it’s a new recipe.
- A challenge: take on a challenge, film a video and invite your followers to do the same.
- React to…: film your reaction to something trending in the news or on social media.
- Unboxing: show your followers what’s inside that new box you just got delivered.
- Successfull day: let your followers know how you define a successful day, and show them video clips of what that looks like for you.
- My favorite things: share a video with your favorite products, places, or anything else with your followers.
- Give a tour: give your followers a tour of your home, office, or another space you frequent.
- Play a game: film yourself playing a game (alone or with others) and invite your followers to join in or beat your score.
- Dance challenge: film yourself dancing to a popular song, then challenge your followers to do the same.
- DIY: show your followers how to make something, whether it’s a piece of jewelry, a cocktail, or a simple snack. Show your human side and make it fun and creative, so people can engage.
- Get ready with me: film yourself getting ready for your day (or night), then share your favorite products, tips, and tricks with your viewers. For example, it can be a make-up morning routine, you do it every day.
- Repurpose evergreen content from other platforms, such as your Youtube or TikTok videos (if you already have them.), which might reach new audiences on your Instagram account.
Filming Instagram reels for your brand can become a powerful asset that will help you grow your audience, raise awareness, get more engagement, and even sell products.
FYI: You can embed Instagram Reels widget automatically with a social media aggregator and UGC platform. Start a free trial to display your social media widgets now.
