Lessons From a Year of Reels

What did you do last year after Thanksgiving?

Take a nap from the deadly combo of turkey, carbs and wine? Watch football? Scroll on social media?

This year I had a low key Thanksgiving on the lake complete with vultures picking away at our turkey! Head to TikTok to see the fun in action.

It’s been a whole year since I decided to try making a Reel after Thanksgiving last year.

I’ve learned so much in the process and here are some of the highlights and pointers for anyone new to Reels or if you want to know more about my experience.

Ignore Vanity Metrics

I know how good it feels to create a video in 5 minutes with minimal effort and get 10,000 views.

I also know what it feels like a slog to create a video in hours, do my makeup, pick a trending audio and only have 100 people see it.

That’s the funny thing about Reels. More isn’t always better. I have a few videos that made it over the 10,000 view mark and they weren’t any better than my other videos.

The likes and views might be an ego boost but if they aren’t reaching the right people they won’t help your business.

I’ve realized the videos with the biggest impact are the ones where someone who is your ideal client sees your video, maybe likes it, starts following you and then makes the leap to visiting your website or sending you a DM to work with you.

The Tips and Tricks Work (Mostly)

I won’t pretend to understand the Instagram algorithm completely. At its most basic level Instagram rewards you, the creator, for content that keeps people on the app.

If they engage with your content with a like or follow even better. They usually will give your post or Reel a boost.

Starting out I tried out all sorts of things to get the algorithm to like me. I used trending audio, movement, text and captions. Did I also mention I was posting a lot?

I don’t recommend setting a schedule you can’t keep up with but for a few months I was posting a Reel almost daily. The algorithm rewarded me for it with higher and higher views.

The problem was Instagram started pushing my videos out to people who weren’t my ideal audience. They really enjoyed watching my videos but weren’t interested in my services or learning more about web design.

So I changed my Reels strategy.

Know Your Audience

Your audience will help you create content and their input is valuable. Thankfully I already did market research while creating Reels for my web design offers so I knew the questions and concerns of the business owners I was talking to.

Not sure how to do market research for your topic or skill? Check out my blog post all about market research!

So I went back to those burning questions I’d gathered and created content to answer and address those specific concerns. My views and likes were down but my engagement and followers steadily rose again.

I was attracting people who were interested in my subject matter again!

The only metric I really track now is how many people are visiting my website from Instagram and how many DM’s from interested people am I getting.

These are the actual needle movers in my business and not just what makes my content look good or successful on Instagram.

Steal my Reels

If you’re ready to use the power of Reels to grow your business I poured all of my knowledge and tips into Steal my Reels.

This is an awesome mini course where I tell you exactly how I grew my business with Reels and without having to rely on ads!

Did I mention the best part about using Reels is that they are like free advertising for your business?

Instagram still prioritizes Reels over other content so if you’re thinking about using them for your business I say try it out!