Instagram Reels for Business: From Basics to Best Practices

Did you know that people watch nearly 139 million Reels every minute? Yes, you read that right. Reels have become one of the most popular content formats on social media. So, it’s safe to assume a significant portion of your target audience uses the Instagram feature.

How do you reach this audience? Simple: by incorporating Reels into your social media strategy. The Instagram feature can help you increase brand awareness, engagement, and conversions. However, this can be a bit challenging, especially if you’re not fully conversant with Reels. Luckily, we’ve got you.

In this guide, we take an in-depth look at Instagram Reels for business, covering what they are and how to create and optimize them to maximize audience engagement.

What Is an Instagram Reel?

An Instagram Reel is a short, vertical video that appears on the platform’s Feed, Explore, and Reels tabs. Like TikTok videos, Reels are designed to be brief, engaging, and easy to scroll.

Instagram has invested heavily in its Reels feature, allowing users to not only record videos but also add music, voice-overs, text overlays, transitions, and filters, all within the app.

Why Instagram Reels Matter for Businesses

Reels are no longer just nice-to-haves; they’re essential for brands looking to boost visibility, engagement, and conversions on Instagram. Here’s why:

The Instagram Algorithm Loves Reels

This has been a subject of debate, with Instagram stating that it doesn’t prioritize Reels over images, while creators argue that it does.

The truth? While the platform doesn’t give videos more weight by default, Reels tend to have a greater reach than images. According to Buffer’s analysis of over 4 million posts, Reels get 125% more reach than single-photo posts and 36% more reach than carousels. So, it’s clear that the Instagram algorithm loves videos. If you’re looking to broaden your Instagram audience, Reels should definitely be part of the plan.

Reels Reach Non-Followers

Instagram often pushes Reels from new accounts to users’ Explore tabs. This presents a great opportunity to grow your Instagram account, as it means people who don’t follow you yet can see and interact with your videos.

Audiences Love Short Videos

As human attention spans continue to decline, short video content has become the go-to for most people. If you play your cards right (we’ll show you how later), this type of content can help you not only reach new audiences but also capture their attention and engagement — which is great for boosting brand awareness, building relationships, and driving conversions.

How to Create Instagram Reels for Business

There are two main ways to create Instagram Reels for your business. The first is to record clips with your camera (or smartphone), and then use third-party apps like Canva to combine them. This is a convenient option when you need to record multiple clips, such as when creating behind-the-scenes content.

The second option is to use Instagram’s native recording and editing tools. This would be an excellent choice for content pieces such as product demos or reaction videos, as you can record everything in a single take.

To upload existing content from your desktop:

1. Log in to your account.
2. Tap Create, then Post.
3. Click Select from computer and choose the video you want to share.
4. Tap Media, then click Add to upload another file (if needed).
5. Click Next. Then, select a cover photo from the uploaded video, or click Select from computer to choose one from your device.
6. Tap Next, and include pertinent details. You can tag people, write your caption, add a location, add alternate text, and change your post’s settings.
7. Tap Share once you’re done.

To upload from your mobile device:

1. Open the Instagram app.
2. Tap the plus icon.
3. Select Reel.
4. Choose a video from your gallery.
5. Edit the video as needed — you can add music, text overlays, stickers, voice-overs, captions, and additional clips.
6. Tap Next, then add relevant details (such as tags, captions, and hashtags).
7. Click Next, then Share.

To create and edit content using Instagram’s built-in tool:

Note: This only works on mobile devices.

1. Log in to your account.
2. Tap the Create icon, then Reel.
3. Click the camera icon.
4. Tap and hold Record to start your recording.
5. When you’re done, use the reels tool menu on the left to edit your video.
6. Tap Next to add desired audio, stickers, effects, and text.
7. Tap Next again.
8. Add your caption, hashtags, tags, and location, and adjust post settings as desired.
9. Click Next, then Share.

What Can You Post on Instagram Reels to Help Your Business?

Instagram users are receptive to a wide range of content, provided it offers value — it can be entertaining, educational, or inspiring. Here are some worth-exploring content ideas for your brand:

• Behind-the-scenes videos: Let current and potential customers see what goes into crafting your products or services. This can help foster stronger connections with your brand.
• Tutorials and how-to guides: Show your audience how to get the most out of your product.
• Before-and-after transformations: Showcase your products’ value by highlighting how they improve users’ lives.
• Company announcements: Let your audience know about your latest product, service, or company news.
• Product showcases: Discuss your product’s features and use cases.
• Interviews: Share valuable insights by interviewing experts in your niche or customers who’ve used your products.
• Day-in-the-life content: Show viewers what a typical day at work looks like for staff in different roles. This can humanize your brand.
• Team introductions: Let people meet the employees who keep your company running behind the scenes.
• Trend recreations: Join trending challenges related to your niche. For example, if you’re a beauty or fashion brand, you could try to recreate popular celebrity looks.
• Food videos (for businesses in the food and beverage sectors): Share recipes, kitchen hacks, and plating techniques.

Best Practices for Creating Instagram Reels for Business

Unfortunately, not all Reels content performs well. For desired results, you need to implement some best practices, including:

Plan Your Content Beforehand

Recording content without a clear plan can take up a lot of time. So, start by deciding what you want to record and writing your script (if necessary).

Do you want to create a product tutorial? Identify common customer pain points and develop a script that addresses them. Do you want to humanize your brand by showing what happens behind the scenes and conducting employee interviews? Let the involved parties know what to expect in advance so they can prepare.

Planning your videos also reduces the risk of straying from your core content or using filler material.

Stay Authentic

While structured content is great once in a while, it can feel too rehearsed and limit audiences’ connection with your brand. So, don’t focus solely on scripted Reels; mix things up with unfiltered moments and videos that showcase your team members’ personalities. For example, you could post a scripted tutorial today and a behind-the-scenes video that shows employees in their element the next day.

Modern viewers tend to connect more with realness. As such, authentic Reels can drive higher engagement rates. They can also make your brand more relatable, potentially increasing conversions.

Keep Videos Short and Punchy

The Reels feature initially supported only short videos. But Instagram has since changed things up, now allowing videos up to 20 minutes long.

However, just because you can post long videos doesn’t mean you should. Longer videos tend to perform poorly compared to short ones because Instagram doesn’t push them as aggressively — the platform doesn’t recommend Reels over 3 minutes to new audiences. What’s more, as human attention spans decline, long videos have low completion rates. Unfortunately, this is a negative signal to the algorithm and can therefore limit content distribution.

To keep your Reels short:

• Focus on one content idea per video.
• Remove all filler words.
• Break up lengthy content into series.

Hook Audiences in the Intro

As with many social media platforms, Instagram is a fast-scroll app. If you don’t capture users’ attention quickly, they’ll not stick around to hear what you have to say or engage with your content.

Skip unnecessarily long intros and instead drop your hook within the first three seconds. You could state your video’s value proposition early, pose a question, or drop an intriguing statement.

Post Some “Non-Brand” Content

Should your Instagram business account prioritize brand content? Yes. However, it doesn’t hurt to include some “non-brand” videos in your Reels, as long as they align with your niche and target audience’s interests. For example, you can hop on trending challenges in your industry.

Offering more than just brand content makes you appear less sales-y, which can boost audience engagement.

Add Captions

Adding captions to Reels improves accessibility for people with hearing disabilities. This not only broadens your audience but also positively impacts your brand image.

Captions also help reach users who prefer to browse Instagram with sound off. They make sure your message lands, which can increase your overall engagement.

Be Consistent

The more active your Instagram account is, the likelier you are to reach new audiences. Posting on Reels multiple times a week signals activity to the algorithm, which in turn pushes more of your content. Consistency also helps your brand stay top of mind, which can help you grow your account and increase its overall engagement.

To promote consistency, especially if you operate multiple Instagram accounts for your business, leverage automation solutions like Geelark. GeeLark is an antidetect platform that not only helps you isolate each of your profiles (via cloud phones and multi-account browsers) but also streamlines account management.

The platform’s Instagram Reels automation tool mimics human-like interaction flows by posting videos the same way you would via the app. How? Well, GeeLark provides cloud phones that work pretty much the same way standard mobile devices do. When auto-posting your content, the platform uses these cloud phones, making it appear as though you’re posting from a normal device. This reduces your risk of raising bot flags.

Track Content Performance

Monitor Reels’ performance to identify what works and what doesn’t. Then, focus your time and resources on strategies and content ideas that work and drop those that don’t. For example, if a specific type of video gets you hundreds of engagements and another one only registers a few, focus on what gets you the best results.

Some key performance metrics to track include:

• Impressions: Number of times a Reel was displayed. This metric helps gauge your content’s visibility. A high number of impressions signals Instagram is pushing your content.
• Views: Total times your Reel started playing. As with impressions, this metric can help you evaluate your visibility.
• Engagements (likes, comments, shares, saves, reposts): These metrics can help you assess your content’s value. The more engagements a Reel has, the more valuable your audience perceives it.
• Accounts reached: The number of accounts that saw your content.

Take Advantage of Instagram Reels for Business

With the Instagram Reels feature recording millions of views per minute and billions per day, it’s undoubtedly one of the best places for businesses to position themselves. It can help you reach a broad audience, promoting brand awareness, engagement, and conversions.

Of course, how you use the feature determines its value to your business. For optimal results, post content that aligns with your audience’s interests, keep videos short and direct, add captions, and maintain consistency. Also, monitor the performance of different Reels to identify what resonates best with your audience. This way, you can double down on what works.

GeeLark can help you make the most out of Instagram Reels for your business by automating post publishing. With the platform’s automation templates, you never have to worry about posting inconsistencies. All you need to do is create cloud phone profiles, upload your Reels content to GeeLark, and select your preferred publishing date. The platform will then handle the rest.

The icing on the cake? GeeLark can automate posting at scale, helping you maintain consistency across multiple accounts.

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