- Well, Instagram Reels is getting bigger and bigger
and so in this video,
I'm gonna show you how to use Instagram Reels for business
including some best practices and ideas to think about.
All right, let's get into it.
(upbeat music)
Hey, welcome to "Five Minutes Social Media",
where we help overwhelmed business owners
become streamlined entrepreneurs
by helping them eliminate 50% to 80%
of their social media workload while increasing results.
If that sounds like something you could use
in your business,
take a second, hit subscribe, click that bell
(bell chimes)
that way you'll be notified each week when we release
another helpful video.
Also, if you're struggling with engagement, reach, sales
anything on social media,
I've got this Social Media Quick Fix Guide.
It's normally $19 but I've made it free
for my YouTube family
and I'll tell you how to get it at the end of this video.
My name is Jerry Potter.
Yes, it rhymes with the Boy Wizard.
And today we are talking about Instagram Reels for business.
First, I'm gonna give you a walkthrough
on how to use the app
then I'm gonna share some best practices and ideas
specifically for how you can use it for your business.
So I'm gonna fill my Instagram Reel outside today.
So I figured we'd come out for the tutorial as well
instead of sitting back in the office.
Now, one thing I had to find a place to set up
because one of the things that's frustrating
with the Instagram Reels
is all of the icons over here as you can see are in white.
And so originally I was in front of this hill
and then the sky and you couldn't see them at all.
So that's why I'm sort of awkwardly perched
in front of this tree.
So we're gonna walk through the steps about
how to put together your Instagram Reel
going through the things on the screen.
And I wanna tell you first there are the things you can do
before you record your Reel,
so that for example you can hear the music
while you're recording it.
And then second, there are the things you can do after
you've recorded it and we'll go through those as well.
So to get started you of course open the Instagram app
and there's two ways you can go into create a Reel.
The first way is just on the Instagram home screen here.
You can push that plus sign near the upper right there
or from your profile, you can hit this plus sign
and it will actually give you a choice to upload
or do all kinds of different things in here.
So I'm gonna go ahead and tap Reel.
But starting up here in the corner,
that's just some settings for your Reels.
You won't be in here regularly
but you can go through
and say you want to automatically save your Reels
to your phone, if you wanna do that.
And you can also default to the front camera
or the camera on the back of your phone.
And then you can also decide
which side you want the tools on.
So if it's more comfortable on the left or the right,
which is kind of a cool thing they did.
Next if you've used any phone camera
you probably know what that is.
That's the turn the light on or off or auto.
So you can cycle through those.
The X over here is of course to exit out
if you don't want this Reel anymore.
And then these are gonna be your production tools here
on the right.
So the first one is Music
and this is sort of the beauty behind Reels
and of course, TikTok,
is that they've negotiated deals
with all of these record companies.
So you can get like some of your favorite songs
from the biggest artists in the world to use in your Reel.
So that's why there is so much dancing and things like that.
So to use it, you would just tap on that Music icon
and then this brings up a search engine
basically for all kinds of songs.
And so if I wanted something,
let's say 'cause it's a nice sunny day,
I could type in sunshine.
Bunch of songs that mention sunshine come up.
So I can play it here to preview it
or I can just tap on it to add it.
And then once it's there,
you can decide which part you want to be in your video
by scrolling back and forth and choosing different parts.
And I'll usually choose probably the most popular section
or the chorus of the song by default
and so you can kind of leave it by that.
And you can see, as I'm scrolling
the lyrics are moving up and down on the screen.
So you can kind of see exactly where it is.
Once you've got the part that you want, you just hit done.
And now you can see it's changed
to that Natasha Bedingfield album cover,
"Pocket Full Of Sunshine".
And when I go to record,
it's actually gonna play that music in the background.
So if you wanted to dance to it or talk to it
or point at things or whatever else it might be
in rhythm to the music
then you can hear it there.
If you're just playing with it,
you decided you didn't want the music
just tap on it there again
and then you can hit delete and it will be gone.
So next up under the audio is the length of it.
And Reels can be up to 30 seconds
but you can also set your limit ahead of time
if you want it to only be a certain length.
They can be shorter as well
but once you choose this, it can't be any longer than that.
So it says 30, you see.
I tap on it, now it says 15.
So if I all of a sudden have the 16 second idea,
it's not gonna fit.
So unless you want to cap it to a certain length
you could just leave it at 30,
either way it certainly works.
Next up below that is the speed.
And if you've watched Instagram Reels,
you've probably seen lots of people doing
some very cool dances
and different things at different speeds.
So you can choose the speed ahead of time.
So for example, I tap on that 1X
and then you can see I can go three times as fast,
twice as fast, four times as fast
or the two at the top are one third speed or half speed.
And so you can film in those speeds
and then it'll be play back at regular speed, okay?
So once you choose that.
So for example, if I choose 4X
and then I go ahead and tap the record button
and that's just that button there in the center,
by the way one difference from Instagram Stories,
Instagram Stories, you have to hold the button down
with the default,
there's another place where you can do it where you don't
but here there is no way to just like take a photo
in Instagram Reels right now
so you just tap it once and it will start recording.
I'll show you how you can use still images
in your Reels here in just a second.
So I tap that, starts recording.
So I'm here, I'm talking, I'm waving, I'm dancing
which you don't wanna see but you get the idea.
I hit stop.
Now I'm gonna go back and check it
and you can see I did 4X, right?
So it's playing back super, super fast.
I'm gonna delete that, I don't need that clip.
Next below that is Effects.
And these are similar to the ones in Instagram Stories
if you're familiar with those.
So I can tap on that and then you can choose
by scrolling here at the bottom.
So I'm not gonna go deep into these
but here's Window by Instagram
where you can add a photo or a video for your background.
Here's one called Smooth Skin makes you look extra lovely.
So you can cycle through and play
with different filters here if you want,
look at that, wow, it's sparkly.
Next below that is Touch Up and you can tap that
and now it's activated
and I can hold it and drag it up and down.
And I can't really tell by looking
I guess some of my freckles are getting a little bit
more hidden.
I don't know, can you see a difference?
You can let me know in the comments
but anyway that's the sort of touch up,
make yourself feel better about the way you look,
tap it again if you wanna shut it off.
And then this last one down here is the Timer.
And so if I tap that,
now, I said earlier I set the whole thing
so I can go up to 30 seconds.
But depending on what you're doing,
you might want a certain section to only be
a certain length.
And so if you wanted to do that,
you can drag this and say,
okay, I only want this to be one second.
Like, let's say you wanted your 32nd Reel
to have 31 second clips.
Well, this is one way to make sure
that they are only that long.
You can also choose how long the countdown is
by tapping up here.
So you can do a three second countdown
or a 10 second countdown
depending on how much time you need to set up.
Then we hit Set Timer.
And now when I tap Record,
there'll be a three-second countdown.
It'll record for one second and then it'll be done.
So I tap that.
So we have three, two, one, here it goes.
And oh, and that's it.
One second goes very fast, doesn't it?
Now you may notice that now that I've recorded that clip,
there's another one that is shown up underneath here
and that is called Align.
It's kind of creepy if you're watching it right now
but what Align does is it lets you line things up.
So it's showing my previous clip
and then now I could have two of me
and make sure that, you know I'm in front of the other one,
like, Hey, I'm a twin or whatever it might be.
So sometimes if you've watched a lot of Reels
and they do this on TikTok as well,
people are having to turn that off
'cause it's getting kind of weird.
They're having a conversation with themselves
in a different costume or different things like that.
So it allows you to line your next shot up
with your previous shot, okay?
So those are the settings with what you can do
before you record your Reel to get it all ready.
Now I wanna show you really quick,
let me just record a couple more things here.
So I'm gonna hit record
and now I'm talking and I'm gonna hit stop.
And then I'm going to hit record again
and now I'm doing this and I'm gonna stop.
So once I've got all my clips
and you can probably see up along the top here,
these are each of your clips
and the overall length compared to the full 30 seconds.
So now I tap this little left arrow
which is to the left of that record button,
tap that and now these are each of the clips
that I recorded.
So I can go to each one now and I can delete them
which is of course the trashcan or I can trim them.
This one's a little longer, so I go to trim
and then if I want it to be shorter,
like where my hands started coming in
and I can drag those bars
and I can have it trimmed just to that part.
And you can see the time,
so if I want that to be exactly two seconds.
So once I have it where I want it,
I just hit trim and now that's been saved in that way.
Once I've done everything I want to do with these,
I can hit done.
I told you I'd show you how to add a still photo
'cause you can't take,
as of this recording you can't take a still photo
in Instagram Reels
but I can tap on my camera roll down here in the lower left.
And by the way, I'm showing this on an iPhone
but Android should be very similar.
Once your camera roll is open,
you can tap on the one you want
and then it'll default here to about five seconds.
But just like with the other ones you can drag and trim,
you can see as five seconds and then you can trim it
to be shorter if you want.
Then when you're done hit Add in the upper right corner
and now that's been added to the Reel.
So now if I go and play the Reels,
you can see all of the clips here.
They're all there in order.
And you can pull video clips off of your camera
the same way,
which actually I'm gonna do here in a second
when we actually make the Reel that I'm gonna make today
as part of this demonstration.
So once everything's the way you want it
then tap the right arrow to the right of the record button.
So I'm gonna tap that
and it's going to pull up your Reel
and it's going to basically play it the way that it looks.
So I've loaded this video from my camera roll
that I'm gonna make my Instagram Reel out of.
Full disclosure, I actually filmed this outside
of the Instagram app
because there's this high-speed effect in there
that you can do in the Instagram Reel as I showed you
but I thought it was easier to do it in a different tool.
So, but I've got it all loaded up.
If I wanted to trim it at all,
again, I can just drag the edges here
but I've already timed this out to be 30 seconds.
I'm gonna hit Add in the upper right corner
and then tap that right arrow.
Now I'm gonna show you the things you can add
to an Instagram Reel after it's gone up.
So first in the upper left corner
that back arrow that is just there for
if you wanted to go back and change anything.
The next one is a download arrow, you can tap that
and it will save a copy of your Reel to your camera roll.
Next up is your Audio Mixer.
So I can tap on that and I didn't add any music to it
but if I did,
so I can go in here, choose a song
and now it's playing both of them at 100%
or I can drag my finger and say,
oh, I only want the music to be at 25%.
I want my audio at a hundred percent
or maybe you don't want your audio at all
and you want all the song.
Then you can come in here and you can mix that exactly
where you want it.
Now in this case, I actually want my audio all the way up
and I don't want any music.
So I'm gonna go back in here, hit that delete icon
and now I'm all set.
Next step, that little microphone.
This is so you can record a voiceover.
So you might wanna add narration after you finish your Reel.
So you can hit record
and now I'm talking on top of my own Instagram Reel.
You can see the bar turning red there
when you're done, hit stop.
Now I don't want that,
so I'm gonna tap this little X on the lower left.
Discard, yes and so that is gone.
Next up after the microphone is the Stickers tab
and if you're familiar with Instagram Stories
just like that, I will tell you when you scroll
not as many are loading
but you can search for whatever you want.
So I could search for, I'm gonna search for nap
'cause at the end of this video, I'm very tired.
So I type in nap and hit return.
And then I can scroll, first, it'll bring up the emojis
then the gifs.
I'm gonna grab this gif that says I need a nap.
I'm gonna pop it in right there.
Now at the bottom left there,
you see it says Tap To Set Duration.
And so I'm gonna tap on that.
And now I can drag to select
exactly where I want this to appear
and I actually want it just at the very end
where I am lying in the grass
so I'll show you what this whole thing looks like
when I'm done in a second here.
So I've got that there and now I want to move it up here.
Pinch to zoom or make it bigger.
And so now it's just showing up at the very end there.
So I hit done and you can kind of see in the background
it's still there faded out on the upper right
just so you kind of know where the placement is
but it's not gonna show up until the end there.
So you can add as many gifs or stickers
or whatever you want inside of here,
just use the search function.
After that is the drawing tool.
So if you wanted to go in and draw on the screen,
you can choose your color.
You can, you know, draw arrows, whatever you want
then once you hit done
but one thing to know is this does not have the ability
to be assigned only to a certain part of the video.
So I'm gonna actually go into there again.
And I'm gonna hit undo and get rid of those
because I don't want those
at least not what I'm looking at it right now,
hit Done.
And then the last one is your text.
And this is where you can add text to your video
and you can add it to where it shows up
only on certain places.
So I'm gonna tap that and I'm gonna put in my text.
So I've put in what I want.
I'm gonna scroll through and choose the font I want.
I want that one.
And then these are also similar to Instagram Stories
so I'm not gonna go too deep
but you can tap these up here for different texts effects.
Now that I've got that where I want it, I hit done.
I'm going to put it right here,
so it's front and center
and drag it around, that line means I've got it centered.
Now at the bottom you can see a tiny piece of it.
It says, if you
and so I want this to just show up at the beginning.
So I'm gonna drag this back.
I'm gonna have it go away
pretty much when I start running away.
Once you've got everything the way you want it,
you're gonna hit that Share To at the bottom
and don't worry there's another standby screen.
It's not gonna go up right away, so I tap that.
Now I can write a caption.
You can put in some hashtags as well underneath
and it's just pointing out,
Hey, this is not an Instagram story, it's not a feed post,
this is to share to Reels.
And then under that, you can share it to the Feed as well.
And I'll show you what you wanna keep in mind
if you do share it to the Feed in just a second
but it's just a great way to more exposure
so I suggest leaving that on.
You can also crop the profile image.
So basically you can see this is the square
that's gonna show up on my profile.
And if I put my finger on it,
I can drag it up and down to the exact piece that I want.
So generally, if you're centered, then it should be fine.
While you're on this screen,
you also wanna choose your cover.
So you can see the thumbnail of the cover there
on the upper left.
So I'm gonna tap on that
and it will let me drag through here.
And it's pretty accurate
and choose exactly what I want the cover to be.
But if you wanna go all out,
although I kind of like that one, the, I need a nap one.
If you wanna go all out,
you can add something from your camera roll
and what I like to do is create something in Canva
or another graphic editing program.
So here's the one that I signed in Canva
and I'll give you the dimensions here in a second
but I'm gonna hit Done.
So your overall thumbnail you want to be
1080 by 1920 pixels.
So that's vertical
because it's gonna be watched vertically on the phone.
And then I made myself this little template
but I'll give you the dimensions here basically
the part that's gonna show on your profile grid
is just gonna be a square.
And so if you have words up here,
they're gonna get cropped off.
And so this is exactly 420 pixels here at the top.
And then again at the bottom, that'll get cropped off.
And then this blue section here that I have,
this is 135 pixels.
And when it comes up just in the regular newsfeed
on Instagram, the top and the bottom will be cropped off.
And then of course in Reels,
the entire thing will show up
and then you're gonna hit Next.
But if you wanted to come back to this later,
you could hit Save As Draft.
And actually let's do that just so you know where they are.
So you can save as draft
'cause these can take awhile
depending on what all you put into them.
Now I'm on my profile and if I tap the Reels tab right there
then I can see I have my drafts there.
So I can go in, tap that again.
So this time I'm gonna hit next
and this is the disclaimer that pops up
letting you know that anyone can create Reels
with your audio.
So whatever you say,
somebody else could take it and remix it as it's called.
You could also turn off that.
It says that you can turn off remixing for each Reel
or change the default in your settings.
Then when you're ready to go, you hit share and up it goes.
Now it can take some time to upload
depending on how long it was,
how complex your edits were,
what your internet speed is.
So just make sure to give it time till it fully uploads
and now you can see, there it is, ready to go,
so people can come and watch it.
Now, a few more things you can do to maximize this
after it's already up,
first, you can share it to your Instagram Story.
So I can come down here
and I can tap that little paper airplane
and then add the Reel to my Story.
And it's just like sharing a post or anything else
to your Instagram Stories.
You can pop it in there and people can watch it there
or tap on it to go it.
If you have a beautiful Instagram aesthetic on your grid
and you don't want it there, you can tap on it,
tap the three dots on the upper right corner
and you can remove it from the profile grid
if you want to have it not mess up your beautiful aesthetic
that you have.
I don't have one of those, so I'm not worried about it
but I know a lot of people do.
And now I'm gonna play the final product here
so you can see how it came out.
If your social media posts is just a giant block of text,
looking at it is like looking at this hill.
It looks exhausting.
Oh my God, I've only read the first three lines
of your posts, I'm already tired.
If you want people to read your posts,
don't make it harder on them, break up your text,
make it nice and easy.
Ooh, that was a long post.
Oh, can you give this video some love?
I almost died trying to make my points.
Two more best practices to be aware of,
one, you've gotta post regularly on Instagram Reels
for maximum impact.
So if you wanna really get out there for your business,
you wanna make sure to commit to posting regularly
and then two, focus on engagement.
Make sure you have a good caption
and you are asking people to engage in some way
because that's what you're gonna get your Reel
in front of as many people as possible.
Was this video helpful?
Let me know by giving it a like or leaving it a comment.
You're not only supporting me at "Five Minute Social Media"
but also my two tiny superheroes at home.
And as promised, how to fix your social media problems
I've got this social media quick fix guide on the screen.
You can use that link to get to it.
You can also find a clickable version of the link
in the description of this video.
While you're here, check out what else we've got going on
with free trainings by looking at what's on the screen.