Instagram launched its creative and popular feature known as reels back in 2020. With over 91% of 1.4 billion Instagram users watching reels every week, this feature has evidently gained immense popularity.
However, it isn’t just an entertainment platform for mindless scrolling. They serve as a hub for engaging and easily digestible content with diverse objectives, ranging from language lessons to product testimonials.
One of the many advantages of leveraging Instagram reels for business marketing is its ability to boost your follower count and encourage your target audience to explore more of your feed.
Viral reels are highlighted on the Explore page, where 50% of Instagram users visit monthly to find intriguing content. So how can you get there?
This article outlines the best all-time hacks that will help boost views on your reels.
Let’s Dive in!
Why Are Your Reels Not Getting Views?
If you have a good amount of followers but only receive a handful of views, your reel strategy might be plagued by common errors that hinder their reach. The following mistakes could be responsible for the low viewer turnout on your reels –
- Retrieving reels of poor quality from other apps like TikTok
- Your Reel doesn’t have an interesting hook in the beginning
- Not using the Instagram tools for curating reel content
- You post reels without proper optimization
- You’re posting at the wrong time
- You’re missing out on trending audio
- You’re not engaging appropriately with your target audience
15+ Tips to Get More Views on Reels
Here are some safe and quick hacks that will help you avoid these common mistakes and improve the number of views on the reels. Ultimately, the goal is to drive organic traffic to your feed.
Let’s discuss each of these hacks!
1. Make Use of Trending Audio Tracks
Here is an instant Instagram trick pros use to get more people to watch their reels: visit Instagram’s Explore section and tap on the reels category.
You will encounter pertinent videos according to Instagram’s intricate algorithm and your previous viewing history on the platform.
Due to Instagram highlighting them, all of these reels will likely have a substantial number of views. Find the trending audio used in these reels and use it for better reach.
2. Curate Impactful and Engaging Content
Creating appealing content while keeping in focus your target audience is the key to better visibility. Whether for a business or personal account, defining a niche is vital to reach out to viewers interested in your content.
Ensure the content is original and the video quality of the Reel is top-notch. Low-resolution reels fail to make an impact on the viewers.
Use Reels aspects like polls, stickers, and popular audio to genuinely engage your audience with the subject matter of your content.
3. Incorporate Popular Hashtags
You must add suitable hashtags to guarantee that your Reels receive the attention they deserve. They are yet another important element of Instagram optimization.
Utilizing hashtags also aids in a keyword search. Thus, increasing the likelihood that your Reel will appear when someone searches for or follows a relevant keyword.
Additionally, such hashtags aid Instagram’s algorithm in comprehending the theme of your content.
4. Post During the Most Active Hour on Instagram
Optimizing your posting schedules is one of the most crucial and straightforward strategies to modify your Instagram effectiveness.
Are you aware that Instagram tells you when your followers tend to be active?
Instagram mentions your followers’ peak activity hours for each day of the week in the analytics section of the application. Make sure you leverage this data!
You should use this data to determine when to post Instagram Reels for maximum visibility.
5. Use Subtitles and Closed Captions
Since a majority of online videos are viewed without turning on the audio, integrating on-screen text and subtitles into your reels is an effective hack if you want to expand your audience.
Additionally, subtitles make your content accessible to individuals with hearing impairments. Emulating closed captions allows them to follow conversations, events, and other intricate details of your Reel.
You can use Instagram’s closed caption feature to add subtitles to your Reel. Place your enclosed captions in the center of your screen to ensure they are viewable throughout the Reel.
6. Make Sure to Share Reels to Your Feed
One of the easiest ways to drive up Reel views and enhance their viral potential is to share them on your Instagram feed. Or else, there is a possibility that your followers may skip your Reel.
You can post a Reel cover image to ensure that it blends in well with your overall content if you are concerned that it will spoil your feed’s visual appeal. With and AI image generator such as ArtSmart, creating custom images has never been easier.
However, you can easily remove the Reel from the feed later, as the chances of higher visibility are during the initial days of posting it.
7. Share the Reel to Your Instagram Story
Sharing your Reel to your Instagram story is a strategy to ensure your followers don’t miss out on valuable content due to time gaps or algorithm errors.
Many people who frequently view stories but do not go through their feeds will get an idea of what you have posted.
You can cover a part of the Reel on the story with a GIF or image to create interest and curiosity. It can be a soft CTA as well.
8. Opt for an Impressive Thumbnail
While you may be willing to believe that Instagram is more effective at selecting the ideal cover for your Reels, that isn’t always the case.
Consider selecting an aesthetically pleasing thumbnail that can capture attention.
You can also include words or a quotation as a heading to help people understand the kind of content you are sharing. This will benefit the audience and draw their attention to watch reels of their interest.
9. Engage With Your Audience by Replying to Comments
Creating engagement on your Reel significantly accelerates the interest of users. You must interact with your followers in the comment section by answering their questions, initiating a discussion, or showing gratitude for their responses.
You can use an auto comment tool for Instagram powered by chatGPT to make things easier.This hack qualifies you as an active user and helps increase your reach.
Your reels require likes and comments in addition to views. Your followers impact the app’s algorithm when they frequently like and comment on your reels. As an outcome, Instagram will give your clips priority placement on their feeds, increasing your popularity and view count.
10. Make Use of Viral Templates
You have the potential to succeed in increasing substantial viewers by employing a template to create viral Reels.
Instagram provides you with essential samples in the form of templates so that you can quickly recreate a popular reel. You can effortlessly apply this effective formula to build your brand by following the layout of a viral Reel.
All you need to do to access the templates is click the Reels tab and find the Templates option beneath the record icon. A Reels templates menu with multiple ideas will appear.
11. Post Consistently
Consistency is an attribute that viewers of Instagram adore.
Make sure your reels are uploaded constantly and regularly if you want to build reliability and engagement on your Instagram page. However, publishing excessively can come off as spamming and repetitive. So keep it genuine!
Your reel viewers will increase significantly when you remain active and post consistently.
12. Leverage Creative Tools to Increase Visual Appeal
Reels include numerous embedded tools and features that can assist you in producing excellent multimedia material. However, a few third-party tools might be helpful if you want to go any further.
Viral reels are a product of high-resolution quality, eye-catchy design, and perfect color toning.
Various tools for video editing, data visualization software, social media management systems, and more exist that can facilitate and expedite the Reels content development and publication experience.
Ensure you do not use watermarks or low-quality downloaded content from obsolete apps. Instagram automatically holds back the reach of such videos.
13. Collaborate With Other Content Creators
Collaboration is the new master plan for a win-win situation of increasing your social media visibility. It is significantly beneficial for reels on Instagram to increase your reach and boost engagement.
Work with content creators and digital marketing experts to find innovative methods to tell your brand’s narrative. More engagement, integrity, and recognition are generated when influential voices collaborate.
You need to ensure that the creators you collab with share the same vision, approach, and interests. This helps garner a target audience who will be interested in your content.
14. Keep it Short
Various research suggests that the average attention span is up to 8 seconds. This implies your reels should be able to catch the attention within the first 10 seconds.
In this growing digital world, a multitude of content is available on the web. Viewers often tend to scroll through quickly without much patience. It is, therefore, highly recommended to keep the length of the Reel short.
You can start the Reel with an intriguing or interesting idea. However, making short reels of up to 10 seconds is a tried and tested formula for viral reels.
15. Implement Q&As in Instagram Reels
Absolutely nothing beats the creativity of your own community when it involves generating concepts for content.
Keep people interested by employing Instagram reels to respond to their queries. You’ll get an unending stream of content suggestions if you conclude one of the reels with a call to action, encouraging viewers to contribute additional queries for you in the comments.
Simply choose a commenter’s query and utilize it as the basis for your upcoming Instagram clip. You will receive a string of loosely connected items using this strategy.
And because they’re hoping to get their queries answered, it helps to keep your consumers returning for additional information. You’ll be asked more questions as you provide more answers.
16. Go for Paid Promotions
Instagram’s new feature of boosting a post is a paid way of gaining more viewers on your Reel. Though this feature is sure to garner more traffic to your content, you need to be watchful about the quality of your Reel.
Interesting reels work best to drive organic traffic. Your Reels videos must be under 60 seconds long and have a 9:16 aspect ratio to qualify for boosting.
However, paid promotions are mostly done by business brands. You can still try the other hacks to gain organic viewers if you are an individual influencer.
Getting More Views on Reels
Reels have been demonstrated to be a fantastic method for interacting with your audience. Instagram aims to motivate users to contribute creative content using Reels, making them an effective way to gain organic Instagram visibility.
A recent report states that users are spending 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels on Instagram. So why not showcase your creativity and become an expert in your domain by curating interesting reels?
Interesting, original, and quality content is the key to better viewership on reels. Incorporate the above strategies to let the magic unfold!