Reels are short vertical videos, set to music, that Instagram shows to people who do not follow you yet. That last part is the whole reason to bother with them. A normal post reaches your followers. A Reel can reach anyone.
That also means a Reel is judged by strangers who have no reason to be generous. Here is what we tell clients before they start.
- Decide what the video is for before you film. Showing a product, showing how the work gets done, showing the people behind it. Pick one. A video that tries to do all three ends up doing none.
- Say it fast. Fifteen seconds is not long. Cut the introduction, cut the logo animation, start on the thing worth watching.
- The music is not background. Instagram surfaces Reels partly by what is trending in audio, and viewers judge the mood from the first note. Choose deliberately.
- Use the editing tools. Speed changes, cuts, captions. They are built in, they are free, and a video without any of them looks like a video that nobody edited.
- Add a few relevant hashtags. Not thirty. A handful that describe what is actually in the video is how people outside your following find it.
- Work with someone else. A collaboration puts your video in front of a following you do not have yet. It is the fastest reach you can get without paying for it.
- Answer the comments. Engagement is the signal Instagram reads. It is also just polite.
- Look at the numbers afterwards. Views, saves, shares. Two or three Reels in, you will see which kind performs, and you can stop guessing.
The honest version: Reels reward consistency more than production value. One decent video a week beats a beautiful one every quarter.
If you want them made rather than explained, that is something we do.
Noah WinkelmanSelva Digital
Builds websites and the systems behind them for small businesses in Spain and the Netherlands. Writes down the things clients ask twice.
