A Guide to Instagram Reels for Trinidad and Tobago Businesses

Reels are one of the latest features from Instagram in Meta’s continual fight for eyes and regular users since the popularity of TikTok. Similar to TikTok, Instagram Reels are short-form and vertical videos that users can record, edit, add music and add text, all in the Instagram app.

Reels are capped at 60 seconds and seem to leverage the success of TikTok’s short and snappy video content.

Reels are one of the best ways to increase your brand’s visibility on the platform and increase factors such as reach and engagement. However, like all content online a strategy is needed to create consistency and alignment with your brand.

But first, how do you create a Reel?

Here is a quick guide on how you can create Reels:

You can access reels by clicking the reel tab (on the bottom bar of the Instagram page on mobile), clicking the + icon in stories and scrolling to reels or by clicking the + icon on the top left of the Instagram feed next to the message icon.

From there you can then record your video content, whether it be for the full 60 seconds or smaller clips. Some creators prefer to record their videos separately and edit on video editing apps such as InShot, Vimeo etc and then upload the video to the platform. However, there is no standard practice that is better than the other.

After you have recorded the video content you can then click Preview. That will then take you to a window where you can add effects like texts, drawings and music. This is essentially where you can add the after-effects to the edited video.

Now that you know the basics of how to create Instagram Reels, here are some tips before you start creating them for your brand.

1. Create Your Concept

To find inspiration and guides on how to create your first few Reels, you should research what brands you like or get inspiration from are doing on Reels. You should also research what your competitors both locally and internationally are doing as well. Through this research you will find a lot of content and learn:

- what trends or formats fit your brand e.g can popular voice-overs trends work for your brand?

- what type of content would be intriguing to your audience example, tutorials, behind scenes etc.

- Are there any filming formats that you recognize and think would work for you? For example, showing the product in the first shot and then showing the behind the scenes of how it was created or vice versa.

2. Include Text Captions in Your Reels

A report by Digiday states that 85% of Facebook videos are watched on mute. Thus, content that has subtitles or captions tend to perform better because it ensures all viewers can engage with it.

This can help your Reels reach more people but it will also ensure that your Reels are catering to the hearing impaired. Additional text will also just help give the video more context if you were not able to include everything in the video or audio.

3. Have Fun with It

Many local businesses overthink their TikTok and Reel strategies to the point that they never actually create any content. However, the international businesses that have seen success through short-form content across the platforms don’t make the highest quality content but rather create, short concise videos that reveal more about their brand.

Brands like Sephora, Netflix and Apple actively use reels for both extremely high-quality content and lower quality but more engaging reel content such as voiceovers that relate to their brand and behind the scenes content.

Similar to TikTok, Reels should start as a venture where brands can expand their creativity and through that process, find the niche of content that fits their brand and audience.

What have you taken away from this year’s digital report of Trinidad and Tobago? Tell us in the comments or better yet be a guest contributor and respond to our article- Send us an email at info@connectivepros.com