Let’s talk Instagram reels! Should you be doing them?
Are they worth your time?
The answer is Yes! They are 1000% worth your time.
Why?
Reels are Instagram’s version of Tik Tok. They are 15-30 second video clips that automatically repeat. Right now, IG is rewarding people who make reels, making them a great way to end up on the explore page and get in front of a new audience. Yay!
But don’t worry, you don’t need to dance to make a reel.
In episode 48 of the Wealthy Coach Podcast, I’ll be discussing:
- Why reels are the most powerful piece of Instagram content right now
- How to make reels without dancing
- How I have used reels to increase my engagement by 500%
- What type of content to share in a reel
- How you can use reels to grow your audience in 2021
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Listen to the podcast here:
Blow Up Your Instagram With Reels
I’m super stoked to be here. Happy New Year. It is January 4th, which means that we’ve had New Year’s. We have completed 2020 and we’re moving into 2021. There is something about a new year that I always find exciting. I love to reflect on the previous year and look at the growth I’ve made personally and professionally. I love to plan for an upcoming year. As someone who’s been averse to planning in the past, I have fully planned out my year. I feel good and excited about it. Also, I feel like I’m proud of myself and proud of you for getting through 2020 because I know it’s been a challenging year for many.
When I think of 2020, I think of a lot of good and hard things. I had a lot of amazing things happen. I was a part of an amazing leadership collective where I got close with a bunch of amazing people. I don’t think I could have joined that collective in a better year. It was divine timing because I felt supported throughout all of 2020. I made some big moves in my business, learned a lot of amazing things in my business. I made some big pivots and some big shifts. I feel like 2021 is finally going to be the business I want. I finally figured it out. I’m excited about everything I have planned for 2021.
I also made a lot of progress with my physical health. As you guys know, I was working with Dr. Evan Hirsch since February of 2020. I’ve made so much progress. I feel much better. I have much more vitality and energy. My sleep has been great. I’m incredibly grateful for that because I had been struggling with that for about eight years. It had been getting better but it’s made a huge jump in the right direction since working with Dr. Evan. Also I made a lot of personal growth in 2020. I learned about boundaries and how to implement boundaries properly, which is a struggle for all of us.
I’ve gotten good at dealing with external boundaries so boundaries with family, friends and people asking for my time. What I realized that I wasn’t good at was personal boundaries. I was breaking my personal boundaries all the time. As a result, I created a bit of overscheduled disaster saying yes to way too many things. That was a good shift as well. A lot of great things happened in 2020. If you want to learn and hear about all my biggest lessons of 2020, I did release a YouTube video on this. I had some big ones and they would be helpful to you.
Instagram Reels For 2021
What I want to talk about is something a little bit different and fun. That is Instagram Reels. Instagram Reels are something that you should put your focus on for 2021. If you have no idea what the fuck I’m talking about, let’s define Reels. What are they? Instagram rolled out at different times to different people. I first noticed them in early fall but didn’t give them much attention. Reels are Instagram’s version of TikTok. You are probably familiar with the TikTok app, which is mostly dancing videos and that sort of thing. It’s popular with the young ones.
I briefly entertained TikTok and tried to put a few things on there. I ultimately got a little bit weirded out by their privacy policy and all of that. I decided that TikTok was not for me. Anytime a new app comes out, the bigger platforms like Facebook, Instagram, same company, always try to take over like the big monopoly that they are. They see something doing well and seeing people getting excited about a certain thing. I remember Periscope was one of the first apps that did live streaming. Maybe Periscope still exists. It’s a Twitter thing.
I don’t know if it still exists but it was the first app that I went live on and it was a huge thing. Facebook was like, “We’re going to do live video now,” and Periscope went away. Live video on Facebook got big for a while. Same thing with Instagram and Facebook Stories. That was not Facebook’s idea, that was Snapchat. Snapchat got popular and then Instagram and Facebook introduced Stories. Does anyone not use Snapchat anymore? Unfortunately, when these big businesses have little regulations, they can create monopolies like this.
Instagram is now introducing Reels to compete with TikTok and you may have seen this. Reels are these 15 to 30-second clips. They have a bit of a different video icon than a typical video and you might notice people doing maybe dances. Sometimes, you see people doing little tutorials with music in the background where they’re pointing to different words. Sometimes, people do them without music. Those are Reels. You may or may not have them available to you on your app because they are currently being rolled out. They get rolled out to different accounts randomly.
The Power Of Reels
If you were looking for Reels, where you would find them if you had them was to pretend like you are making an Instagram Story. Go in there like you’re making a story and it should be one of your options at the bottom. You can swipe to the left to get live video Story. To the right, there should be something that says Reel. If you don’t have it, just be patient because you’ll probably be getting them soon. Why are we talking about Reels? They are powerful. Maybe they could make you wealthy. This is the thing, anytime a social media platform like Instagram and Facebook roll out something new, they want you to use it and they will reward you for using it.
Instagram would hate to roll out something and have nobody use it, so they want to incentivize you. There are few people overall doing Reels so if you do Reels, you are going to reach a lot more people, which is cool. When you go into your Instagram app and there’s that little magnifying glass at the bottom, you can click into that like you’re going to search. That brings you to the Explore page. Twenty percent of people’s Explore pages are Reels. That means that it is easier than it has been in a long time to get onto the Explore page.
Why is that important? Getting onto the Explore page can get you in front of lots of people. Getting on the Explore page is something that could potentially lead to you going viral. That may not always happen but Reels are definitely getting priority on the Explore page, 20%. That gives you the opportunity to reach a ton more people. This is the thing. A lot of people are still doing written posts but those are getting the least amount of engagement on Instagram. To be honest, those take a long time to write.
People will get a nice photo or maybe they’ll get a photoshoot. They’ll write this great caption but the least amount of people are seeing your written posts. Even Stories are going down for engagement. I used to get somewhere around 500 to 800 views on each of the Stories that I posted. Now, probably around the 100 to 200-mark. That has dropped significantly not because of something I’ve done. That just tends to be what happens over time. The other thing about Stories is typically, Stories are only serving the people who are already following you. Most of the time, other people aren’t finding your Stories because people can’t share them.
You can use hashtags but the last time I checked, all hashtags had been banned. You couldn’t search for hashtags whenever that’s about Instagram. I’m not saying that you shouldn’t do Stories. Stories are powerful for engaging the people you have because your goal on social media should not be just to seek out new followers. That is a part of it. That’s important but we need to serve the people who are already following us. We need to build relationships with them and show up for them every day. That’s where I love to use Stories but it has become harder to reach new people on Instagram.
It used to be that you could do that with live video. When Instagram first rolled out IGTV, that would help because they were prioritizing that but the engagement on that has gone down, too. Now, Reels are what’s hot and if you adopt them early, it could help you grow a bigger following and it could help you find more clients because Instagram is going to reward you. You might be thinking, “I don’t want to make a dance video. I don’t understand how dancing is relevant to what I do.” You don’t have to use Reels to dance. I have yet to make a dancing Reel and I probably won’t. I don’t want to dance either.
There are a couple of different ways that you can utilize them so I’ve been using them in a few different ways. I’ve been doing the typical Instagram Reel where there’s music playing in the background and I teach something step-by-step. An example was five steps to close more sales calls and then I had five quick steps, music in the background and just my face and me pointing to these different steps. I’ve used them that way. I have also used them for comedy, which is interesting because I’ve never considered myself much of a comedian and maybe I’m not. You might not find me funny.
I have found Reels to be useful in bringing out my weird/funny, comedic side. I’ve been doing some funny videos that don’t involve music, that just involves me saying things that are relevant to my audience but make them laugh. I made one Reel that was Things to Never Say in Your Niche Statement and then I made another one called Shit New Health Coaches Say. They were purely for entertainment and a little bit of learning value in there. The Shit New Health Coaches Say is more entertainment. Those have done well and have brought a lot of new people into my audience.
The Result Of Doing Reels
Those are two ways that I’ve been doing Reels so far that don’t involve dancing. The result of me doing these Reels when I go look at these Reels and who’s seeing them, all of them have over 1,500 views on them, which is cool. In fact, one has 5,000 views on it, which is crazy because typically, I get 50 to 100 likes on my posts. I get maybe 100 to 300 views on my IGTVs, lives and that sort of thing. About 100 to 200 views on my stories and then I’m getting at least 1,500 to 5,000 views on these Instagram Reels. The cool thing is they take me no time at all. Once you figure out the whole little technical stuff involved in them, it’s intuitive once you figure it out and it’s easy. I can make a Reel because I get ideas. I download ideas when I’m in the shower and stuff like that. I can get a Reel in ten minutes. It takes no time at all. I find it to be quite fun.
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It’s definitely worth your time. I’ve also noticed in my analytics that I’m getting a 500% increase in the accounts I have reached so it is leading to more followers as well. I want to talk about the types of content you can share in a Reel that does not involve dancing because you do not need to dance unless you love to dance. You want to make it relevant to your audience because we are not TikTokers and influencers. We are always trying to serve our audience whether it’s to teach them something new, inspire them or make them laugh and entertain them.
The first way to use a Reel so you have 15 to 30 seconds is to do something step-by-step. There’s a good chance that you have made maybe a YouTube video, live video, IGTV or something along those lines where you’ve taught people five steps to learn blank or three ways to do blank. That can easily be repurposed into a Reel. You don’t have as much time to explain it but sometimes just telling people the steps is enough. If you want to refer them to the longer video that you’ve done on the topic, you can always direct them to the link in your bio where they can find that specific video.
Some Reel Ideas
As an example, I’m going to pretend that I help women strengthen their pelvic floor. I’m taking inspiration from one of my students. You could make a Reel that says Five Things That Wreck Your Pelvic Floor and you would just be there. You could say these things. You could say it out loud and not use music or you could use music and it could be you doing a selfie and you are pointing to those five different things with music in the background. You can do it that way. I know you’ve done tons of these step-by-step videos, even pieces of content or even a blog post and all of those things. You don’t need to think of new and interesting ideas. Redo some of the stuff that you’ve already done.
The second way is to purely go for comedy entertainment. You don’t always want to be doing comedy entertainment because you’re not an entertainer or comedian. If you can make your people laugh, if you’re a funny, a weird person like me, just to entertain. I would make it relevant to your audience. The examples I told you, Things to Never Say in Your Niche Statement. It was funny and also it was a bit educational because these are things that health coaches say in their niche statements all the time and they may not realize that they are completely ineffective.
The second one, which was purely entertainment, Shit New Health Coaches Say. Check them out and let me know what you think. Maybe get some inspiration from what I’m doing because, to be honest, when I made my first Reel, I had no idea what I was doing. Now that I’m doing them, I’m getting all kinds of great ideas. The next way you can use a Reel is a tutorial so you can teach someone how to do something in 15 to 30 seconds with no music. I could do a quick tutorial on how to do something in Canva or how to do something in Trello that maybe most people don’t know how to do. I could give them a quick tutorial and show them how to do it.
You could do the same thing. It needs to be relevant to your niche but if you help women clear their acne, for example, maybe you have a quick tip you can show them with a skincare routine. Try to think of quick tutorials that will give value to your audience. You’re just recording this like a video without music, no dancing and you need to do it in under 30 seconds, which is super cool. I know you can do this. There are all kinds of little quick things that you can teach people in 30 seconds. The final one is a quick tip. You have 30 seconds so you could talk quickly and say, “This is how I do this.”
Quality Over Quantity
This is still technically a Reel and it could potentially get you on the Explore page and open you up to a whole new audience. People always want to know with stuff like this, “How often should I be doing this, Kendra? Do I need to be doing this every day?” Anytime somebody asked me about frequency, I always like to mention quality. Quality is important. It is important that the content you put out is quality and you are not posting just to post. Put out a Reel as often as you can sit down and make a good Reel. For the people who like structure, maybe start with one a week and see how it goes but you could be posting them a few times a week or even daily.
I’ve been trying to get out at least a couple a week but I’m thinking I should be putting more out there because they are getting me more bang for my buck. This is how I plan to use Reels in 2021. I am going to start reducing the number of posts in my feed. I was posting three days a week so one time on Monday to promote this show, on Wednesday and on Friday. These are usually quotes. Some of them had images of me in them and then a caption. I do a live video on Instagram on Tuesday. I do a live Q&A session.
If you ever have questions from this show, show up on my Instagram Live at 12:00 PM Pacific, which is 3:00 PM Eastern on Tuesday because I’m doing those every single Tuesday and I will happily answer any of your questions that you have about this show there. On Thursday, we repost the previous YouTube video. I am posting five days a week on Instagram, mostly just repurposing content but I have stopped posting the posts that we were doing to Instagram on Monday to promote the show. I’m trying to use a Reel to promote the show so I will let you know how that goes.
I’m thinking of getting rid of another one of my written posts so either the Wednesday or the Friday post and replacing that with a Reel. I’m also trying to post a Reel on Tuesday because typically on Tuesday, the only thing that gets posted to my Stories is the replay of the live Q&A that I do. I’m thinking about doing one there as well. It looks like I’m going to be trying to post Reels three days per week and I might even add a sneaky fourth in there because they don’t take you much time to do. I have a lot of fun with them. I think I’m funny. Is that bad?
Anyways, I’m going to see how that goes because the truth is, there’s no point in spending a ton of time putting effort into content that nobody sees. I’m finding with the Instagram feed posts that those are getting less engagement and I’m getting less likes. Sometimes, I get good engagement with comments, which is cool so I do still want to have that piece of content. If I’m trying to grow my account and attract new people to my account, then Reels is the way to do that. If you are wondering, “How do I learn how to do a Reel?” I have a link to a YouTube tutorial that I use to learn how to do them.
To be honest, if you go learn how to do Reels into YouTube and you put that into the YouTube search box, you will find a ton of tutorials. There are many resources out there on them. Remember, any time a social media platform adds something new, pay attention because you will get rewarded for being one of the first people to adopt it. Now is the time for you to master Reels and get a lot of traction with it because this won’t last forever. At some point, everyone’s going to catch on. A lot of people are going to be doing Reels and then your engagement will be going down and it’ll be hard to get in front of people.
You’re going to have to rethink your strategy or you’re going to have to be adopting the new thing so I highly recommend Reels. The reason I love them is because I find once you figure out the little technical stuff with it, at first I was a bit confused by it. With a few tutorials, I was able to learn how to use it. It’s just ten minutes. I pump out a Reel that can get me in front of up to 5,000 people so far and if I continue to do them throughout 2021 until they get too popular, it is going to continue to get me lots of views and bring new people into my audience. I hope that was helpful.
Health Coach Accelerator
Before we finish off, I do want to tell you about something that’s coming up that I’m super excited about and you should be excited about, too. The winter experience of Health Coach Accelerator is relaunching. I am excited to run this. This is my 90-day group coaching experience where I teach you how to hit your first $5,000 a month in your business and start making that consistently so $5,000 per month every month. Who doesn’t want that? Also, what I teach inside Health Coach Accelerator will help you move above $5,000 so it can get you to $10,000 and beyond.
What do you get inside Health Coach Accelerator? This is my minimalist approach to business building. I know there are a lot of people out there who are telling you to get multiple income streams and diversify. The truth is we can make our business model simple and we can make a good income doing that. We are focusing only on the things that truly matter in getting to that first $5,000 milestone. We are building the unfuck with a bull foundation of your business. We are going to go through defining your ideal client, creating a niche that not only feels super aligned but is also profitable.
You know I’m super militant when it comes to niching so I will not let you leave this program without having a niche that is bomber, bulletproof. We talk about branding and how to create a unique presence online that people are attracted to. Branding is more than just colors and fonts. It is the feel that people experience when they come into contact with you in your business and that is important. We talk about how to create an offer that people are attracted to. We are not going to be selling one-off sessions but we are going to create a program that your ideal client feels like it’s made exactly for them.
I’m going to teach you how to sell that program on a sales call but also on social media. We talk a lot about content creation, repurposing content, how to grow a following on social media, how to build a community and how to build raving fans. Finally, we finish off with email list building because your email list is the insurance for your business. Especially if you do intend to launch a program, courses, workshops, memberships and that sort of thing, you do want to be building your email list because as it turns out, your email list is the most effective place to sell. That is what we go through inside Health Coach Accelerator.
I ran the fall version at the end of 2020 and it was amazing. We had the most amazing group of women. We had an amazing community and we had some great success stories. We are going to be opening for enrollment for Health Coach Accelerator. In the meantime, I would love you to hop on the VIP list as you will get a discount and a promotion offered to you in advance of when the card opens to the public.
That will not be offered elsewhere so it’s always of benefit to be on the VIP list. If you are considering that, you can go to Go.KendraPerry.net/hca-waitlist. If you have any questions about this episode, shoot me a DM on Facebook at Kendra Perry Inc, and I will answer your question on the next live Q&A on Instagram Live. I will see you next time, same time, same place where I help you build the business of your dreams and help you become wealthy AF.
Important Links:
- Dr. Evan Hirsch
- YouTube video – Business Lessons of 2020
- Things to Never Say in Your Niche Statement
- Shit New Health Coaches Say
- Health Coach Accelerator
- Go.KendraPerry.net/hca-waitlist
- Kendra Perry Inc – Facebook
