How to Leverage Instagram Reels to Grow Your Business

5 tips for Instagram Reels you should implement yesterday

1. Maintain brand consistency

Yes, even on Reels.

The first thing that comes to mind when mentioning Reels (or even TikTok, for that matter) is probably dance moves, music, and all those fun-looking transitional elements you see on most videos. While these are all useful tools, you don’t necessarily need to use all of them to qualify your video as a Reel.

A brand should have a distinct social media presence. You want people to be able to tell that it’s you right off the bat. Maybe your brand has dry humor, or is famous for its contagious optimism? That’s precisely how you want to present your brand on Reels too.

While you can take inspiration from what other famous brands or influencers are doing on Reels, don’t stress yourself out trying to replicate what the others are doing. Maintain your brand's style and stay consistent with your messaging.

2. Make high-quality content

This doesn't mean that you need to hire expensive videographers. Reels are no different than any other channel: you want to share quality content that lives up to people’s expectations.

Now, what exactly does that mean for Reels content? When people click to watch Reels, they expect interesting, entertaining, “snackable” content. So, Instagram’s algorithm will favor content that delivers on those parameters. 

Think about making your Reels content visually appealing. Show people too, as everyone relates more to people than products. Shoot in vertical, high resolution, and (if your brand guidelines allow it) get creative with text, filters, and camera effects. The Reels algorithm will give you a nice boost, too, if you use these features. 

Audio matters, so make sure you have a decent sound quality – and maybe try to incorporate popular music where it makes sense. 

3. Repurpose your content for Reels

You’ve done your share of experiments by showcasing your product on Stories. So, why not do the same on Reels? Plus, you got all these creative tools to make it even more fun and engaging.

Think about how you can repurpose your tutorials, how-to guides, tips, and other resources by adding descriptive captions, text overlay, and hashtags on Reels – to let your users know what you’re talking about.

4. Get people excited with sneak peeks

Teasing your audience with sneak peeks of upcoming products is an excellent way to generate a buzz on social media. So, don’t forget to create a Reel as part of your promotion strategy for new products, launches, or premieres, depending on your industry.

This doesn’t require much effort; just a collection of quick clips will be enough to get people excited about what’s coming up.

5. Post behind-the-scenes content

Behind-the-scenes content gives your audience a chance to see a more human side of your brand. This is a clever tactic because it builds trust and makes you look authentic. 

So, give your audience a chance to see relatable content reflecting who you are as a brand, your beliefs, and what you stand for as a company. 

Tip: If you partner with influencers or celebrities, behind-the-scenes content is a fantastic opportunity to create authentic and successful content.

Scale your Reels efforts

As content producers, we know that videos often require a lot of effort to produce. It has to be trendy but consistent, visually appealing but on-brand, entertaining but at the same time substantial and relevant for your business. 

And in a business context, a lot of work goes into ideation, production, approvals, and then distribution, management, and (perhaps most importantly) analysis: do your Reels deliver measurable results? 

Ready for some shameless product placement? 

With Brandwatch, you can manage Instagram Reels across our three products:

• Publish, where you can collaborate on content and schedule your Reels
• Engage, where you can interact with followers and answer people’s comments
• Measure, where you can track the performance of your collective efforts.

Here's a bit more information on these products.

1. Publish: Collaborate from one place

It’s easy for different functions to get caught up in silos. With a good scheduling tool, you can collaborate effortlessly with your colleagues and ensure everyone is aligned on your new content, including how the go-live date fits into your content calendar. 

With Publish, you’ll now be able to share the drafts with colleagues, get people’s opinions, and schedule the publication of your Reels, all from within the same module. 

2. Engage: React fast

As a social media manager, you know better than anyone that publishing a post is only step one. After clicking ‘publish,’ you’ll need to monitor the reactions, reply to people’s comments, and otherwise engage with your community.

With our Engage tool, you’re able to easily manage Reels’ comments as soon as they come in. You can either reply yourself or assign to your colleagues, ensuring no reaction goes unseen.

3. Measure: Track and tweak

Finally, you’ll want to know how your Reels perform. With Measure, you can track engagement, reach, plays, and – more importantly – improve the performance of your social media activities based on the benchmark of the posts that perform best.

You can easily build dashboards that compare your different campaigns and channels against one another, and then share those reports directly with your stakeholders.

Alright, we’re done with the shameless self-promotion. Guess there’s just one thing left to say, and that’s: “Do it for the Reel!”