Tiktok, Reels. What's the deal?
If you're a business owner who's ever struggled with making videos for your
business. Hi. Hello. That's me, three years late to YouTube.
You're in the right place because Instagram Reels is here.
Reels is as easy as making a 15 second video for your business. Sound familiar?
Yep. It's very much like Instagram Stories, but the thing is,
Reels is brand new. So if you're looking for free exposure from Instagram,
definitely watch this video and I'm going to walk you through how to use Reels
for your business.
And stay tuned until the end where I'm going to share with you how you can get
your hands on 300 video ideas that you can make for your
Reels to actually grow your business. I'm Elise Darma,
and I've helped thousands of entrepreneurs, freelancers,
and Creators like yourself use Instagram to actually grow your business.
I'm talking dollars in your bank account.
And today I'm sharing how to use Instagram Reels. First off,
what is Instagram Reels?
My unofficial take is that it's Instagram's play at TikTok,
but what it actually is, is 15 second video clips.
Now that's up to 15 seconds. I tested this.
I posted a short six second Reel and promptly deleted it once I saw
that your video doesn't have to be 15 seconds, just up to 15 seconds.
Now that that little fact is out of the way. Yes,
Instagram Reels is very similar to Instagram Stories. In fact,
it's kind of like Stories on steroids. What do I mean by that? Well,
Reels has music, has filters,
it has different editing techniques and Reels can live way beyond
24 hours.
Just like IGTV you can share them as a preview in your feed.
I like to think of Reels as the middle child in between Stories and
IGTV. Reels is right here. With Stories,
they disappear after 24 hours, unless you save them as a highlight,
but even still, highlights don't live in your feed.
Whereas IGTV is really the place for long form video content,
especially series, like reoccurring series.
So Reels fits nicely in the middle because the content doesn't expire
like Stories, but it's also not long form content like IGTV.
Again, it's 15 second clips that live on permanently in your feed,
unless of course you delete them. Now as a business owner,
why should you care about Reels? As of recording this,
Reels is a brand new feature and we've seen this time and time again.
When Instagram rolls out a brand new feature, whether it's Stories or IGTV,
it's really going to push that feature's usage out in front of
people. So now is the time to jump on Reels. Don't be precious about it.
Just start experimenting, just start putting content out there.
Instagram is looking to support you as a user who's using their brand new
feature. So hint, hint.
If you're looking to go viral on Instagram or you want to get in front of brand
new people, this is your best shot right now.
Essentially what I'm talking about is being an early adopter.
One business owner that I know, Jeff Mack designs,
has been an early adopter of Instagram's features from way back in the day,
especially with IGTV.
And he really jumped on IGTV's long form content,
his videos went viral over and over and over again.
And now he has over half a million followers.
So there are definitely perks to being an early adopter. Now,
one last reason why business owners should care about Reels is because TikTok
has proven the popularity of short form video content.
But some people are a little wary of using TikTok for a variety of
reasons. So if you have been a little unsure about TikTok,
but you trust the Instagram platform, you're already established there,
Reels could be a really great way for you to dip your toe into short form video
content on a platform that you know, and trust.
Are you ready to dive into Reels and get a look at how to use it for your
business? Let me pull open my phone and give you a tour.
So here I am in my home feed on my Instagram account.
Looks pretty much the same. There's nothing out of the ordinary.
So the first place that you want to go to is the Discover button at the bottom.
And Whoa, there you go.
You see Reels is taking up about two thirds of the Explore page real
estate.
So all you have to do is tap where it says Reels and you're being shown this
content.
Instagram is looking at what kind of content I've engaged with in the past.
And it's showing me this kind of content it thinks I'm going to be interested in
it. So as you can see, you can keep scrolling down and again,
you're getting more content that's curated for your tastes.
And you can see here with Michelle's, she's got this little featured label.
So Instagram has chosen her Reel to be featured to lots of people.
And you can see with the hearts she's already got over 22,000
likes. So she's probably getting mega views. Now let's confirm,
let's see how many views she's getting.
So let's just tap on her name and look at that.
We're taking to her Reels tab right away.
So right on the left is her regular feed.
But when I hit the play button icon, this is her Reels feed.
So this is a new addition.
You could see that her videos are getting over a hundred thousand views and that
really helps to be featured by Instagram. So let's go back again.
If you continue scrolling, you're going to be shown featured curated content.
Again, Instagram's looking for content to showcase.
So that's why now is a great time to be on it.
So one of the things that you can see is right at the bottom left is a
song title. This is audio.
Now let's say you really like this audio.
You can simply hit this audio name.
So this is the Toosie slide,
I think it should be the Tootsie slide and similar to TikTok this
audio title, this audio song has its own page.
So you can actually scroll through and see other videos that have used this
exact same audio. But the brilliant thing is,
is right at the bottom there is the button "use audio".
Done. There we go.
So now this audio is already loaded into the top left.
You can see it right there. There is its title. Okay?
So you can use the slider at the bottom to drag to the point of the song that
you want to use, but I'm just going to leave it as is. Hit done. So there we go.
My audio is loaded in, let me show you the other features since we are here.
This feature is a speed feature.
So if I want to fill myself in slow speed or sped up speed,
we can do that. So for example, if I hit 2X, let's just film a little bit.
Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey
Then when you hit this arrow button on the bottom, right,
you actually get to preview it and you can see that I am in 2X of speed.
Cool. Right? So let's hit the back button and let's say,
we don't want to keep that clip.
Just hit the bottom left button here and you get the trash can.
So I'm going to discard this clip. So here we are starting again.
All we have right now is the song loaded up. We can choose our speed.
I'm just going to leave that 1X for now.
We can also add a filter or an effect. Okay?
So some of these effects are ones that I've already saved.
So same filters that you've already saved, you can find them here.
Some of them I've found specifically to be useful for Reels or TikTok.
I already know with TikTok, this green screen feature is really, really handy.
So I've saved it. I found it, saved it. Now,
if you want to look for more effects or filters,
just hit the title where it says "green screen" and check this out.
I've already saved it. So definitely save all the ones that you like.
But if you hit "browse effects",
this will actually show you other effects or filters that you can use.
So there's ones that the community has made.
I always like to check out the Instagram ones,
because typically these ones are designed specifically for TikTok.
I always like to check out the Instagram filters because there are some here
that are really designed specifically for Reels, the party lights one,
for example, I recognize that from TikTok.
So let's go ahead and try that one. Let's say I like it.
So I'm just going to hit the name "party lights" and then "save effect".
And now it's going to be in my bottom row of effects. Okay.
So, Oh, I just filmed two seconds there. Sure.
Now let's go back to effects and scroll around.
Let's find let's turn off the effect. Okay.
So there's one without the effects. And let me just film a little bit more.
So this is going to be filming over the music as I'm talking.
Exciting. Okay. So underneath the effects button is a timer.
So this is really handy. If you want to have that jump cut effect,
right?
So you can drag this timer to record as long or as little as you want
over the next segment of the song that's coming. So let's say,
I just want it to record for these four seconds, right? So,
and then I'm going to hit "set timer".
I'm going to hit the record button. I get a countdown.
And you can see, that it automatically stopped recording.
Now these are all very similar features to TikTok.
That's why it's been pretty intuitive and easy to pick up these things.
So at the top, you can see this red line forming.
This is my way of knowing that I still have more audio to
fill in the song, right? So if I want to preview it,
I just hit that arrow button. Here's a preview.
You can see, like, my clips are starting to be stitched together.
One other effect that I want to show you is this align one.
Now I think this is a pretty cool effect that even TikTok didn't have,
you can see,
this is a snapshot of the frame of my last clip, right?
So this is how I stitch clips together.
Let's say I wanted to change my outfit so that the next time I show
up, I'm wearing a different outfit.
So that's why this feature is going to be really,
really handy for anyone who's in fashion, who has products,
who wants to change up the location,
because all you have to do is simply fit in your frame as best as possible hit
record. Okay.
It's going to be a fantastic video. Um, but like if I, if I preview it,
you can see here that I kind of matched my head's positioned to the last
place that it was left in. If that makes sense,
Let's see how well I did it. Wasn't that great of a transition, but, Hey,
that's what that "back" button is for to be able to delete clips. Now, again,
the bottom left here, I can see a preview of my last clip. If you tap that,
then you get the trash can icon and you can discard it. Okay.
So that is basically a tour of how to make a TikTok video.
Let's just finish off this video and let's do it in 0.5 speed and hit
record. There we go.
I finished off my 15 second Reel.
Now I have a full preview of it,
and now you can see familiar buttons at the top. So there's first of all,
a save button, which will allow me to save this video without audio.
Okay. So that means if I wanted to post this again in the future,
I would have to add the audio again and then pull up this video from my camera
roll. Okay. So I'm not going to save it now,
but I do have a few stickers and GIF options right at the
square smiley face, right at the top.
Now you're probably familiar with that if you've used Instagram Stories before.
We also have the pen tool, Right?
Fantastic handwriting. Um, that's supposed to say, Hey.
But the last thing I want to show you is the text tool at the top.
Um, and we can just say, Hey, it's Elise.
You get some functionality here to change up the style of text.
But the cool thing that I want to show you is
this slider that you see at the bottom. Okay.
I can actually drag it around and tell Instagram when
to display this text. So you can see that it faded out a little bit right here.
It's solid. And then it faded. That's Instagram's way of telling me, Hey,
it's not going to show for this segment of the video.
So if I scroll my cursor all the way to the beginning,
I can see that the "Hey it's Elise" is lightly faded,
then it pops up in bold so this is when it's going to appear in the video and
then it disappears again. Okay. So that's really,
really good to know if you want to time your text to the beat of a song.
Alright. So we're going to hit the right forward button.
This should look familiar.
You can hit here and choose a cover either from the video or you can
choose from your camera roll, hit done.
You're going to write a caption and then you have this option to share to your
feed. I highly recommend to share to your feed because it's going to get more
exposure. And again,
Instagram is looking to get your content out in front of new people.
So this is going to be a great way to be discovered by new followers and new
potential customers. Alright,
congrats to you for making it to the end of this video.
I know it might seem like a lot to be getting yourself into video marketing,
but I do have something for you that's going to make this process a whole lot
easier. How would you like 300 Reel ideas for your business,
whether you offer coaching services or products?
That's right. I have done the brainstorming for you.
I have 300 video ideas waiting for you, just head to ReelsVault.co,
and grab this steal of a deal so that you have 300 ideas in your
back pocket. You'll never be at a loss for what to create for your Reels.
To ease and revenue. I'll see you in the next video.
Thanks for watching today's demo on how to use Instagram Reels.
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