This week, we’re talking about all of your Instagram Reels questions! I got all of the questions we’re going over from my Instagram community, so if you don’t already follow along, make sure to do that now. Next we plan a Q & A episode, you’ll be able to join in and ask the questions you want answered. Let’s dive into this week’s Instagram Reels Q & A now!

“I see everyone posting about lots of followers from Reels. But I’ve barely got any. Any tips?”

When it comes to growing your followers with Reels, what I like to think about is the end goal of Reels. Why are you using them? For most people, it’s not really just to gain followers, although that is fun. Instead, think about why you’re using Reels. Maybe it’s to increase your affiliate income. Maybe it’s to build a stronger connection to your audience. So, think about that – and remember that even if your Reels aren’t getting you tons and tons of new followers, they’re still accomplishing other things. Once you have your big goal in mind, you can start tweaking your strategy going forward. Your follower count won’t pay the bills, so you have to be strategic about what you DO with them once you’ve got them. That’s what really matters.

“Is there any rhyme or reason for Reels that get 1000s of views versus just 100s”?

That’s a great question. I would say in the grand scheme of things, there are going to be Reels that will just do better, for a variety of reasons. I teach about this in depth in the Reels Mini Course – how to create those Reels and what’s going to work for your accounts. So it’s obviously a big topic, but overall: it’s totally normal for not every Reel to perform as well as another. And, keep in mind that you won’t really get more views than you have followers. So, for example: if you have 1K followers, then getting 1K views is doing REALLY well. But again, going back to question one, views should not be the only goal of your Reels.

I would say that having engaging Reels with a good hook, following trends, and making it interesting are going to be the biggest things that help you here. It’s okay if they flop, too. That’s the nature of them!

“If you are wanting to start with Tik Tok, is it bad to repurpose your Reels or should you record in Tik Tok and move them to Reels?”

If you want to do Tik Tok at the same time as Reels, I think it can really go either way. I think it’s smart to repurpose your content! As far as I’m concerned, there’s not a right or wrong way to start and then repurpose between the two platforms. But, I will say that the main thing to keep in mind is making it native to the platform. What I mean is that when add it, add text from within the app – not saved to the video. You should also try to find the audio within each app separately whenever possible, too. It shouldn’t look like you’ve repurposed it from the viewer’s perspective. I actually just shared about this in a recent video, so you can view that here!

If you want to know more about repurposing your content, I just added a new lesson to my Reels Mini Course about how to repurpose your Reels, so join us HERE.

“Can you share the basics of Reel creation: adding text, timing, etc.?”

So, I won’t go over this one here but I have tons of videos you can look at HERE about how to create your Reels! If you haven’t checked out my YouTube channel, go and do that because I have tons of tutorials for you.

“What is the line between professional and personal when sharing on your business page?”

Personally, I’m a huge fan of personal branding for multiple reasons. That means incorporating your personality in your brand… and I think it’s great, no matter what kind of business you have. This helps you to stand out and make connecting with your audience even easier. If you’re able to incorporate yourself into what you post, you’re much more likely to create a super strong connection before someone has even purchased from you booked, you become your client, whatever that looks like. Personal branding also makes it really easy to pivot your business, even in smaller ways. Instead of building your business solely on what your business does, you’re building your business or brand on who you are as well. I have a couple of videos on that HERE and HERE if you want to learn about it in more depth!

I just really think it’s such a smart way to build a brand. For me, when I started my business, I was 100% a wedding photographer and that was my only stream of income in my business. But, instead of just sharing about weddings that I was photographing, I was also sharing about me I was sharing about me and my husband. I talked about my dogs and how much I loved chai lattes, things like that. Since my content wasn’t solely what my business was, it made pivoting out of photography and into education that much easier. People know me, they trust me, and they like ME as a business owner.

Also, as far as like what to share… personal branding can look so different. It doesn’t mean you have to share everything about your life online. But it does mean to share parts of you that you’re comfortable sharing and use that to make connections.

“What are the best hashtags to be seen?”

So, I’m not actually a fan of using hashtags anymore on Instagram. I made a video HERE about this recently. But the short cliff notes version is that for most brands, putting the time into finding hashtags just isn’t the best use of your time and energy. You could be putting that effort into making Reels, connecting with your audience, or doing something else that’s useful instead of trying to find the perfect hashtag strategy. The exception (in my opinion) is if you’re a location based business owner or service-based business owner. Sometimes, those hashtags can still be useful.

“What’s the ratio of personal or business-related Reel content I should be making?”

We talk a lot about this in the Reels Mini Course, but I’m a huge fan of using Reels from the perspective of your audience. So, the answer to this question is really going to depend on who the people are that you’re trying to reach. Remember, Reels are meant to reach non-followers, so you have to think about what would make someone want to follow you?

Create Reels with them in mind – the kind you create, how you make them, and so on. Then you can create other content (stories, posts, Lives) that cater to your warm audience or the people already following you. If you’re trying to attract people to your business, I would say 90% of your Reels should relate back to your business somehow. That’s not to say you can never do personal Reels or something funny. But, keep the goal of reaching people that don’t currently follow you in mind.

“How do you create your own audio for Reels?”

Oh, this is a good one! It’s a bit more advanced but it’s not super complicated. To create your own audio, you’d have to extract audio (edit someone else’s audio – copyrighted or something like SoundStripe that’s royalty free) and use that for your Reel. People do this because they want to start a trend or they have a specific Reel in mind.

But, I just want to encourage you that you do NOT have to make your own audio to make Reels. I’ve had people who do make their own audio come back and say that it didn’t perform as well as they’d hoped, so I just want to share that too. I don’t want to discourage you from trying something but just make sure it’s the best use of your time.

“How do you batch Reels?”

I’ve talked a lot about this before (and especially in the Reels Mini Course – join us HERE), but I’ll chat through a few of the high points for batching Reels. I’m a huge fan of batching Reels. First, if you aren’t sure what I mean by batching – it simply means to do the same kind of task all at once instead of creating a piece of content from start to finish before moving to the next one. That means doing all my filming in one day. All my editing another, and so on. I actually batch prep in a lot of areas of my business – not just Instagram. I’ll film a bunch of YouTube videos at once, or take a ton of new branding photos if I’m getting dressed up for something else.

So for Reels, the first thing is to save ideas so that when you go to film, you’re ready. Then I can just focus on pulling them up and making them when I’m ready. I usually don’t edit them on filming days, I just worry about doing the recording! I’ll go back in at a later date and edit, add text, and write my captions.

Want to help pick topics for our next episode?

Thank you to everyone who sent in questions! I had a lot of fun going through them all and talking about how to make Instagram Reels a little bit easier! Don’t forget to follow along on Instagram so that you can ask questions and help decide what else we’re going to talk about on the podcast! If you have any questions, make sure to email us at [email protected]!