Instagram Reels have exploded in popularity, with over 1.6 billion Reels plays across the app every day. As more brands and creators flood into the Reels space, it’s becoming increasingly challenging to get your Reels noticed and drive meaningful engagement. If you want to grow your reach and views on Instagram Reels, you need to put in place a solid strategy. Here are 10 proven tactics to get more eyes on your Instagram Reels.
1. Post at Peak Times
Timing is everything on Instagram. Your Reel is more likely to get shown to a larger audience if you post when most of your followers are online and actively browsing the app. Use Instagram Analytics to identify the best times to post based on when your followers are most active.
2. Use Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags can give your Reels more visibility and help them get discovered by new audiences that are interested in that specific topic or niche. Do hashtag research to find a mix of high-volume and niche-specific hashtags related to your Reel’s content? Include these in your caption.
3. Leverage Trending Audios
Instagram prioritizes Reels that use popular or trending audio, as these are the types of Reels people want to watch and engage with. Keep an eye on trending songs, sounds, and audio clips, and cleverly incorporate them into your own Reels.
4. Hook Viewers Early
With Reels auto-playing without sound, you have just a few seconds to capture a viewer’s attention and convince them to keep watching with the audio on. Start your Reel with dynamic visuals, eye-catching text overlays, or an attention-grabbing scene to hook people from the start.
5. Collaborate with Others
Take advantage of collaboration features like stitching, remixing, or creating a Reel with others. This cross-exposure can help get your Reels in front of new audiences. Engaging with other creators’ content can also get you on their followers’ radars.
6. Add Compelling Captions
A great caption can significantly boost your Reel’s discoverability and encourage more engagement. Write descriptive yet concise captions that provide context, spark curiosity, or inspire discussion. Use relevant hashtags and even ask an engaging question.
7. Go behind the Scenes
People love getting a glimpse behind the curtain or an inside look. Showcase the creativity and effort that goes into producing your Instagram Reels by sharing behind-the-scenes footage, bloopers, or process videos.
8. Embrace Vertical Video
Most viewers watch Instagram Reels in their mobile feeds, so your Reels should be formatted for vertical viewing right from the start. Vertical videos are more immersive and engaging on mobile. Avoid cropping or reformatting videos from other platforms.
9. Promote Your Top Reels
Once you’ve identified which of your Reels are performing best, put a bit of budget behind promoting those top-performing Reels as Instagram ads. This can amplify their reach to targeted audiences and drive even gets more views.
10. Be Consistent and Patient
Like with any social media strategy, consistency is key for growing an engaged Reels audience. It takes time and plenty of creative effort to start building momentum. Keep showing up with high-quality, engaging Reels on a regular schedule. Analyze what’s working, and refine your approach over time.
Getting more eyes on your Instagram Reels isn’t as simple as churning out videos frequently. It takes intentional planning, creative execution, and a willingness to experiment with different formats and tactics.
How to Find Trends for Instagram Reels and Get Instagram Story Views
With over a billion active monthly users, Instagram has become a powerhouse for driving trends across cultures, industries, and audiences. If you want your Instagram Reels and Stories to gain traction, reach a wide audience, and get instagram story views, you need to tap into the latest trends that are resonating. But how do you discover these trends before they’ve already peaked?
Here are some simple yet effective strategies for identifying emerging trends perfect for creating engaging Instagram Reel content and Stories that get views:
Check Instagram’s Trend Explorers
Instagram has built-in sections dedicated to surfacing what’s currently trending across the app. Head to the Search tab and tap the “Explore Accounts” option to browse currently popular accounts to follow. This gives you a window into emerging trends, content themes, and even viral audios you can use for Reels and Stories to get instagram story views.
The Reels tab, updated daily, surfaces some of the biggest trending Reels across different categories like Entertainment, Comedy, and more. Dig into these to get a feel for trending audio tracks, effects, and content angles to drive Reel and Story views.
Listen To the Instagram Reels Audio Trends Playlist
Instagram regularly updates the “Reels Audio Trends” playlist on apps like Spotify and Apple Music. This playlist compiles many of the most popular songs and audio clips currently being used across trending Reels.
Following and listening to this continuously updated playlist is an easy way to stay on top of the audio spheres driving Reels engagement and get instagram story views. You can then creatively use those trending audios as backbones for your own on-trend Reels and Stories.
Monitor Relevant Hashtags
Hashtags are incredibly useful for seeing what types of content and trends are gaining popularity within your specific niche or industry. Identify a set of core, relevant hashtags for your brand and monitor them frequently using Instagram’s explore pages.
You can dig into the top/recent posts for each hashtag to spot emerging trends, topics, and content angles, getting traction (and views) with your target audience. This “hashtag homework” is essential for tapping into developing micro-trends to get instagram story views on your Reels and Stories.
Take Inspiration from the Content You Enjoy
One of the most obvious yet often overlooked approaches is observing the Reels, Stories, and other content you enjoy watching and engaging with yourself. When you find yourself getting hooked by a certain type of editing style, popular audio clip, or creative concept across multiple pieces of content, that’s likely a signal of an emerging trend to tap into with your own spin to get instagram story views.
Pay attention to the content that makes you laugh, hit you in your feels, or leave you feeling inspired. Those emotional triggers and creative approaches are what make trends stick and drive views.
Get On the Pulse of Pop Culture
Many of the biggest trends on Instagram get their fuel from mainstream popular culture, like trending Netflix shows, TikTok memes, or viral moments across entertainment and celebrity culture. So it pays to keep a pulse on what’s happening across pop culture, approaching it with an eye for how you could riff on those topics or audio clips in creative Instagram Reels and Stories to get instagram story views.
The internet moves quickly, with trends blowing up and dying out just as fast. As someone aiming to create viral, engaging Reels and Stories that get views, you need a mix of strategies and tactics for spotting emerging trends as they’re developing — before everyone else is already on that bandwagon.
By leveraging Instagram’s own trend tools, studying what’s resonating in your focus communities, and keeping an ear to the ground across pop culture, you’ll always have a steady stream of inspiration for making your Reels and Stories stand out to get Instagram story views and reach new audiences.