Are your reels really working?
more and more from Meta
Adam Mosseri has said this week that there is really no ideal length for reels. It depends on how long it really takes to tell the story. If you can reel users in with really good bait on your hook they might stay on the line for the whole three minute maximum but it really needs to be a really good reel.
I follow
https://www.instagram.com/mosseri/
https://www.instagram.com/jacktalkscontent and
https://www.instagram.com/instagramforbusiness/
which you might find useful for help on using the platform.
So direct from Meta this is the advice –
https://futuresocial.beehiiv.com/p/3-instagram-tips-straight-meta
Post 3 to 5 times a week and that means posts not stories – its gotta be on the grid.
Use 3 to 8 hashtags in the caption not the comments which reflect the audience you want. Anything over the 8 the algorithm is not guaranteed to take into consideration. So you gotta make the 8 count.
Ok now for the confusingish part – are we brands or creators?
Both I hear you say, and I agree. I think Instagram’s idea of brands and ours may differ a bit here.
Music wise we are to use trending audio to help the algorithm if we are creators.
If you’re a brand (which I am taking in this context to mean set up as business with a professional account – (you have now entered blur central please take appropriate precautions – you need fluid at this point)) then you can only use music in the ‘sound collection’. Yep, me neither so I checked it out.
This article on Buffer gives you 8 ways to find tracks and 17 tracks that are trending (or were when the article was written at the end of January). The tips are worth a look regardless.
https://buffer.com/resources/trending-audio-instagram/
The goodish news is that there are 14,000 tracks of music and sounds to choose from and if you can’t find them on Instagram you can’t use them.
If you have a professional dashboard you may have seen something new lurking there. It’s called Best practices and it’s a collection of videos covering creation, engagement, reach, monetisation, (I wandered off to spelling bee there) and guidelines to help you keep on track. When you click it tells you how you’re doing in these categories so you can keep track and work towards improving in these areas.
Reels may reel off on its own in the future as things are getting a little crowded in Instagram land.
https://techcrunch.com/2025/02/27/instagram-may-spin-off-reels-into-a-separate-app/
All the big guns are after filling your phone, so you don’t have room for the rest. I can get nine icons in a folder – Meta has
Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, Edits … and more.
They want to be all things to all people social media wise.
As they have filled two newsletters so far
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