I’m answering your juicy Instagram Reels questions! How to get started with Reels? How to create unique Reel topics and ideas? How to create different scenes or clips within Reels? And how to create before and after scenes for photographers?
The apps mentioned in this episode are InShot, Videoleap and Quik.
Thank you Brooke Jefferson, Robyn Graham, Dana LaRieal Morales, Maria Majet and Gina Forcatto for submitting your questions.
Full transcription available at the bottom of this blog post
Before you go, I’d love to connect with you and give you some gifts to help you grow your online presence!
Instagram @allisonscholes
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/2594119307580743/
Work with me: https://ascholes.wpengine.com/instagram-success-method/
Free Caption Templates: https://ascholes.wpengine.com/free-captions/
Personal Branding Workbook: https://ascholes.wpengine.com/rock-your-personal-brand/
Full Transcription:
Welcome back. This is episode 84, all about Instagram reels. Today. I’m answering questions that came directly from my community and the questions are pretty juicy. Whether you’re on the fence about using reels or wondering how to show up uniquely this episode will help you decide if you’re going to use reels or not grab your coffee, because I have my coffee and let’s dive in.
Hey there, my boss, welcome to the social media for mompreneurs podcast, where we dive into personal branding, how to build our businesses on social media, learn some really cool marketing hacks all while balancing family life. And don’t forget we do it. The fun and easy way. I’m Alison Scholes, once a corporate marketing coordinator, a teacher, and now photographer and podcaster. And yes, I’m that boss, lady and sweat pants. Go ahead and hand out the kids tablets, open those juice boxes, put on your comfy sweat pants and hiding your closet. Let’s get this party started.
before I Get into today’s questions. I want to remind you that I’m an Instagram clarity coach, and you can grab a quick one hour session with me and together we’ll clarify your Instagram brand, your brand message. And I’ll help you map out Instagram content for the next 30 days. Or you have the option to enroll into social brand accelerator, which is the ultimate Instagram course that walks you through identifying your ideal person to planning and creating Instagram content. There’s also a stock photo vault, caption template, volt, hashtag training and everything on stories and reels. Once you’re enrolled, you have lifetime access to all the content and I’ll always be adding content to the course. So that’s pretty cool. All of this can be found at boss’ leading sweatpants.com. Okay. I’m off my soap box now onto the juicy questions. This first question came from two people. Shout out to Gina for Cato and Maria May jet.
If I butchered your last names, I’m sorry. All right. Here’s the question. How do I get started? Okay. Just like anything else you just got to start at some point you posted your first post. At some point you posted your first story on Instagram or you posted your first video. So here’s my advice when you feel stuck and you really are interested in trying reels, but the problem is you’re most likely watching so many other people on Instagram have these almost picture perfect reels. The timing is just right there on point. They look great. They’re pointing to the text, they have fabulous music. Okay. So here’s my best advice. When you want to start with reels, number one, stop watching what everyone else is doing because everyone on Instagram is at a different point in the way they show up on Instagram. They’re at a different point in their business.
And a lot of those people that you’re watching on Instagram reels have already been on Tik TOK for a long time. And you might notice that they’re just repurposing their videos. So staff watching what other people are doing and start simple. And what I mean by that is just do one clip on Instagram reels. You have the option of either 15 seconds or 30 seconds. Some people have the option to do 32nd Instagram reels. I do not. I’m still at 15 seconds. That’s a bummer. But anyways, so what you’re going to do is you’re just going to teach on one small piece of content. Think about what you are really good at, what you love to teach on and what you know, in a way that you’ve love to help your ideal audience. Take one small piece of content and teach that in 15 seconds.
It can be a tip or a trick. Maybe it’s a quick recipe. Maybe it’s a business, tip a parenting, tip an exercise, tip, whatever niche you are in. What you’re going to do is choose one small blurb from your long form content. The only thing that you have to remember is whatever you decide to teach on, make sure that it relates to your, I deal audience. So to answer your question, how do I get started? It’s just like anything else in your life and in your business, you just have to start. Don’t compare yourself to how other people are showing up in their reels. I want you to focus on your personality, your brand, your content, and your ideal person. That’s all you have to think about when you are creating your very first real. Now, what I would do to make yourself a little more comfortable, the first time doing a reel is just take a piece of paper and just jot down your topic or idea, give it a title, and then write down two to three quick bullet points.
This is not something that you have to have completely written out and you’re going to read from because you’re just not going to come across as authentic and that’s not your true personality. So make sure that you are just jotting down quick bullet points. Just as a way as you would show up, live on Instagram live, or maybe you would show up, live in your Facebook group. You wouldn’t be sitting there reading a script. You would just have bullet points and you would teach your audience. Same thing when it comes to reels. And go ahead and practice a few times just using your camera phone on the video selection. So there you go. Just start when it comes to reels. Now here’s the second question. How do I come up with unique topics and ideas? Some reels seem repetitive, like pointing to texts with music.
So I’m hesitant. I love this question. This question comes from Dana. The real Miralis. If I butchered your name, I’m sorry. So here is my ultimate answer to this one because I’m noticing the same thing as well. And you might actually be a little annoyed by it because I’m annoyed by it when I’m on Instagram. And I start scrolling through the reels. It’s almost that it’s on repeat because everyone is choosing music, putting text on their reels and pointing to the text. You, you are not going to stand out on Instagram. If you are just going to fall in line and do what everyone else is doing here is my number one tip to stand out and be unique in your Instagram reels. And that is use your voice. Don’t bother with finding the perfect song, the perfect beat. Just use your voice. So when you are going to create a reel, what you can do is just open the Instagram app and you add a real as if you’re going to add a story.
So when you go to add a story and Instagram, you should have a menu at the bottom stories or reels. When you click on reels, that’s when you can start recording, have your ideas, a bullet point of ideas, ready to go and just speak. Use your voice for 15 seconds. That is how you are going to be neat. You be unique using reels reels as an opportunity for you to showcase your personality, showcase your brand. And I don’t think you can do that. If you are just standing like a mannequin and pointing to text, that is not who we are. We don’t walk around and point to things all day long. That’s not how you teach your audience and your stories. That’s not how you’re teaching your audience on video or in your Facebook groups. You’re using your voice. So I think you need to do the same thing in Instagram reels, use your voice.
And another thing about Instagram reels is we have this feeling that we need to show up all the time on Instagram reels. No you don’t. I want you to think quality over quantity. If you are delivering content that is relatable to your ideal audience and you are just sprinkling reels once in a while, you’re fine. You do not need to be creating these glorious reels each and every day. No you don’t. You just want to mix up your content on Instagram using the various features. So yes, you need to be in your news feed. You need to be in your stories. You should be going live or doing IETV once in a while. And same thing with reels. Reels is an opportunity for you to get discovered by a brand new audience. Um, you know, a lot of people might be here’s another question that I’ve not on my list, but it has been asked is what is the difference between stories and reels?
Well, stories is only seen by those who follow you. If you post a reel and it’s getting traction from the people that follow you, the algorithm will push you to the explore tab. So that is the one big bonus to Instagram reels is you have the opportunity to get discovered in the explore tab. And that’s why you will see more views, a larger reach. So sprinkle in reels when you can and think quality over quantity and use your voice. Don’t worry about having the perfect timing of your text and pointing to text and having the perfect music don’t bother when you’re first starting out, just use your voice to teach on something and just make sure that it relates to your ideal audience. All right, next question comes from my friend, Robin Graham. And I liked this question. How do I create so many different scenes on one short video?
Yes. You’ve seen the awesome reels that have these amazing different scenes. Most likely those came from tic-tac. A lot of people remember are repurposing their tick-tock videos on reels. They’re just replaying them. They’re not redoing them. So when you want to create different scenes, I say less is better. So in a 15 second reel, I would not have all these flashy scenes. It’s going to distract your audience. And your message is not going to come through your content and your message should outweigh the way that you edit your reel or all the different scenes. So I would say four scenes at max. And what we mean by different scenes is when you’re in Instagram reels, there is a timer option on the left-hand side, you will see the stopwatch. When you click on that stopwatch, it is going to ask you for your first scene or your first clip, how much time do you want to let it go?
So you may choose between four to five seconds. And when you select your time, when you click record, it’ll do a countdown, a three second countdown, and then it will start recording. And it’ll only record for the amount of time that you selected in the timer. That’s how people are doing different scenes within the Instagram app. If you are recording your reel right in the app, that’s how they’re doing it. If you want to change your scenes, you can, they are fun. It is more creative and it captures the eye of your audience, but I would not go overboard with all the different scenes, because then that becomes distracting and your content and your message gets lost. So be creative creating scenes, but don’t go crazy. All right, last question. And then I do have a final tip. This last question comes from Brooke. Jefferson.
How do I create a reel showing before and afters on photography images? Do I create reels solely in the Instagram app or use other apps? I love this question. So Brooke is a talented photographer and she’s also an educator for other photographers. So Brooke, what I would do is I would use external apps, different apps to create a slide show. And the three apps that I would suggest are InShot video leap or quick in shot is easier to use. That’s more on the basic level. And then video leap and quick are more of your higher level creative apps. So I would start with InShot and all you have to do is import your different before and afters and create really cool transitions right there within, in shot. And for photographers who want to use reels as a way to display their photography, or as a way to teach photography, I would focus on a theme or a mood like family shoots, holidays, mini sessions, or if you’re going to educate other photographers, I would teach in a way that you are going to show other photographers, quick editing tips using Lightroom.
So that would be a great way to showcase your, for your photography using reels. Either use it as a before and after showing different moods or different themes or use it to educate other photographers. And those three apps. Again, we’re in shot video leap and quick, and I will make sure that the links to those apps are in the show notes. And I will also have in the show notes are for incredible women from my community. Their links to their Instagram will also be in the show notes. Now, here is my final tip for Instagram reels. This is how I use reels. This is how I batch reels for the week lately. I have been getting some comments in my DMS asking me how on earth. I am creating reels along with my news feed, along with my stories. How on earth do I have time to do this?
Here’s my answer. I batch my reels. I do not create my reels in the moment or post them. What I do is I shoot my video outside the app. That’s right. I do not use Instagram to shoot and edit my reels. I use my camera phone and I shoot my video out, outside the app. And if I’m going to do three or four bullet points, all I do is a countdown on my video. I do three, two, one, and then I say my bullet point. And then I do it again. I say three, two, one, and then I do my bullet point. And the reason why I say three to one is because I take that one video. Okay. I am not creating a bunch of different videos. If I mess up, I just take a pause and I say it again. I have one video in my, my camera in my phone.
Okay. I import that one video into the app in shot in shot is extremely easy to use. I now have that one video in InShot and I just press play. And guess what? When I hear myself say three, two, one, I pause my video. I cut the film in half, right? I cut it right at that point. And I delete the beginning. Part in shot is super easy to trim and clip your video and shorten it to your 15 seconds. That’s it. That’s what I do. And the reason why I do that is because I can take one morning of the week and I can batch all my different videos for how many reels I want to do that week. And I typically only do two to three reels a week. So I will batch two to three videos on one morning, I will import into InShot and I will trim it to my 15 seconds on the day that I want to post that reel.
That is when I import it into Instagram real. So when you open Instagram reels, not only do you have the option to record your reel, but in the bottom left corner, you’re going to see a little box down there and that’s your, uh, photo reel or your camera reel. When you click on that box, your camera reel pops up, select the video that you trimmed. You already have your 15 seconds put it in Instagram reels, and then I can choose to add text or not. Boom, I’m done. And then I write my caption. I put my, you know, my camera art on there that I want that it’ll be in the newsfeed. That is how I do it. That is how I save time with reels. That’s how I batch. And I find that it’s so much easier for me just to show up on my camera phone and do my video.
I find that when you’re in Instagram reels, especially if you are the type of person that you don’t do a lot of video and you are watching that little red timer, the little red bar at the top of Instagram reels, you get nervous. You’re not being yourself, your true personality isn’t coming out. So I highly recommend that you shoot your videos outside of Instagram. Just use your camera phone, shoot your video. I don’t care how many times you mess up, just have your bullet points, restate them a couple of times, throw that video in, in shot, trim it down. You can even add background music. If you want to. You don’t have to. And then on the day that you’re ready to post a reel, just upload it to Instagram reels and you’re done. Here’s the biggest thing. Don’t overthink Instagram. Really the only two things that you should really be thinking about is what are you really good at?
What are you good at that your audience loves? And what is relatable to your, I deal audience. That’s it. That’s all you need to do on Instagram. Real. So here’s the question. Will you start using Instagram reels? If you do. I want to know, go ahead and tag me in your Instagram stories and let me know, because I want to make sure that I support you on Instagram reels. And of course, if you have any more question, when it comes to reels, shoot me a DM. I will make sure I answer them. And maybe I’ll come back on and do another Instagram or reels 2.0 Q and a. I’ll talk to you.
Thank you for tuning in today. If you love today’s episode, then please head over to iTunes, social media for mompreneurs and leave a review. Your review helps grow the show and don’t forget head to boss, lady, and sweatpants.com to grab all my freebies and hang out with me on Instagram at Alison Shoals. I’ll see you soon.
