September 3, 2020 3 min read

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

Instagram created Reels, a new way to engage and connect with your followers and audience, but will it help brands grow and stand out in the current chaotic noise on social media? 

Reels is Instagram’s latest feature that launched at the start of August as a competitor of TikTok. Instagram users can now create bite–sized videos sharing tips, inspiration or light–hearted good vibes. At the start, TikTok captured a tween and young adult audience but recently started attracting more entrepreneurs leveraging the platform to serve as a lead generator for their brand. 

Related: Instagram Launches Reels and Tries to Beat TikTok at Its Own Game

Here’s how you can start using Reels for a similar purpose and grow both your business and your brand outreach:

1. Study Instagram’s series of tutorials to help you create a look and feel for your reel.
2. Craft a storyboard of what you want to share as far as tips that align with your brand. Sharing three tips seems to be an easy format that can assist in designing your first reel. 
3. Practice a few times prior to publishing your first reel. You can easily delete and try again. While creating your first reel, try to utilize all of the features Instagram Reels offers: music, font, font style. Note that some Instagram users have reported that the music option is not available. 
4. Use the new real estate to make you stand out more. Starting to create content on IG Reels will naturally give you leverage and help you share your channel as suggestions to people looking at Reels. Creating tips that are connected to your expertise and industry while making it fun can help you garner interest, develop connectivity and lead to sales. 
5. Utilize longer viewership and engagement from followers. “My first reel was just showing a face mask hack where I added buttons to my surgical cap to ease the pressure of ear loops of KN95 masks,” says Miami dermatologist and MyBiaLife Co-founder Shasa Hu, She’s only created two Reels, one on platelet-rich plasma procedures and another on Covid mask tips. Both Reels have already garnered close to 32,000 views. “Although the content wasn’t directly on cosmetic procedures or skincare, it shared information that can benefit frontline healthcare workers.”
6. Improve your connection to followers and increase sales. Reels make repurposing content easy, and followers are more engaged to listen to messaging as a result of the content being more fun and engaging. The longer the followers stay connected, the more profound your connectivity will be, which is a great way to convert to sales. 

Related: 3 Kinds of Social Media Marketing You Shouldn’t Ignore

“IG Reels definitely has a semi-steep learning curve, even for tech-savvy users,” says Dr. Hu. “For example, it isn’t super clear that you can add text and graphics to various frames within each reel. It took me a while to figure out how to add and edit an IG Reel … be patient, play with layering text, graphics and GIFs on your reel, and play back the Reel to see how your edits appear.”