I'm so excited to talk to you about Instagram's newest feature, Reels. As an early adopter you have an opportunity to have the most powerful organic reach that you could ever experience on Instagram — the time is now. 

You don't have to be perfect and you don't have to have it all figured out to reap the benefits. 

Should you use Instagram Reels for workout clips? 

Remember the two E’s — Entertaining and Exciting. I don't believe that workout clips really hit either of those to be honest so I don’t recommend positing workout clubs to Reels. 

What I recommend doing instead is creating content on a similar topic, but uses a different delivery method. For example, you could give tips for working out by doing a little dance with text bubbles filled with tips which pop up as you point to them.

You could also talk about fitness in a different way than you normally do on either your feed, IGTV or on stories because you can cross pollinate between all these different features on Instagram.

If you're doing the same thing over and over again, it's gonna get very boring for your audience. You want people to be look forward to your Instagram Reels.

Can your Instagram Reels be seen by the general public if you have a private account? 

No, your Reels can only be seen by people who are following you. So in that case, if you do have a private account, your reach is essentially who is already following you and watching your content already.

Will my Instagram Reels show up to people who aren’t following me?

At the moment, Instagram is prioritizing high level and influential creators because they are the people who will introduce people to the new feature. As you spend more time going through Reels, liking and commenting on “normal people’s” Reels, who are not featured creators, you will find that over the next 24 to 48 hours you will start seeing content from people you are actually looking for.

That's why it's so important with to start engaging on Reels NOW. Engage on the content you enjoy seeing and who you want your content show to — it is a process. 

Is there a way to see Instagram Reels laid out like the Explore Page rather than scrolling through them one at a time?

Not yet. When you click on the little magnifying glass at the bottom of the app, the very first video at the top of your Explore Page is a Reel. When you click on that, you will see all of the Reels one after the other as you scroll through. 

As you scroll through you will continuously be face to face with brand new content, which is really exciting about the platform. 

Can you add music to Reels? 

Yes! You can add music. However, if for any reason you’ve had your music feature revoked, you will not have access to music on Instagram Reels. 

Be extremely cautious recording from elsewhere and uploading with music to your Instagram. If they feel like you don't have the permissions to use music they could potentially shut down your account. Instead, until a techie person comes up with a workaround or we get more information — and because I like to be more on the cautious side — continue to email and reach out to Instagram to see what the deal is with your music feature. We‘ll likely have more information about this over time.

This feature is so new that there's probably some people who never actually had the music button and now, do not have the music button on this new Reels feature. 

As an alternative, you could try clicking the audio on someone else's Reel clip and see if you're allowed to use the music that way. Some accounts have had success this way. 

When you notice that a certain song is trending on Reels, that’s a really exciting time for you to show up and put your own spin on.

How do we use hashtags on Instagram Reels? 

Hashtags on Instagram Reels are still up in the air. 

The Reels that you post to the Explore Page will use the same rules as you would a regular feed post — you can use all 30 hashtags. Use the hashtags from your existing groups until we have more information because it appears that reach through hashtags is still an option. 

Should I share my Instagram Reel into my feed or just keep it in the Reels Explore Page? 

If you are sharing your Reel to your feed that will count as your post for the day. When you're posting to your feed make sure that you include a good caption because people still want to read the caption. It’s also important to add a cover photo, which has the same photo dimensions as an IGTV — structure and center it the exact same way. 

I do recommend posting two reels, two to three times per day, at least three times a week but I would not put all of them onto your feed. Keep that to once per week and make it a good quality, educational post so you can increase the likelihood of sharing, saving and bringing more eyes to your content. 

The highest probability of organic reach comes from the Reel Explore Page through consistency over time. 

Hot tip: I like to keep most of mine just on the Reels Explore Page so I can see my organic reach over a 24 to 48 hour time period. 

Are side by side duets an option yet? 

Duetting is not an option yet. It will be really cool to see what types of trends will pick up on Instagram Reels because Instagram Reels is geared towards the generations above Gen Z, which is TikTok’s target market (even though every age group is on TikTok so don't tell me your age group is not there!)

On TikTok everyone has a different feed — no one's feed or For You Page is the same. This is also true for Instagram Reels. Your Instagram Reels Page is curated based on what clips you watch, how many times you watch them, how long you watch them for and what you like and comment on, which is why you should be doing all of those things right now.

How can we add the pop up text?

So I actually did a tutorial on this on my Instagram, which you can see HERE under my IGTV highlights. 

After you record your clips hit the next arrow button on the right which will take you to a page where you can add gifs and text, similar to how you would on Instagram Stories. After you write the text, there’s a slide bar at the bottom of the screen which you can slide to make short or long and that's where the text will appear on your clip. 

I've been teaching my community how to use a trending song to show up on video and point to blank areas where you will put text because those perform really well and it's a great way to get good educational information out and still show a little bit of personality. 

Should I repurpose my TikToks on Instagram Reels? 

I do not recommend just repurposing TikToks on Instagram reels for two main reasons:

1. If you are using audio that's licensed to TikTok but not Instagram, your account can be banned. 
2. You don't want to repurpose it with a little Instagram logo or the TikTok logo because also Instagram will prioritize accounts that build within their platform. They want you to use their features, and they're going to show more of your stuff to people when you do so. They will start to roll out more features to make the editing process on Instagram Reels more exciting but in the meantime, I would not. 

The Instagram Reels feature is exciting so do not sleep on it. Start using it right away because I've been using it very consistently and strategically for the past 48 hours and I've grown about 50 to 100 followers without changing anything about my strategy. 

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