How I Created My “viral” Instagram Reel
Anyone else a fair-weather Instagram reel creator like me?
I don’t know what it is about them… BUT I HATE THEM. I MEAN I LOVE THEM.
As someone who has an entire business around storytelling and video, you’d think I’d be pumping these bad girls out most weeks, but I don’t. It always gets pushed down the priority list even though I KNOW when done right, it’s a great lead generator for me into new audiences.
WOW DID I SOUND JARGONY THERE but are you picking up what I’m putting down? (ok I feel better now)
The trending sounds I get excited when I see good ones, save them in my black hole of “never will check again” Instagram Save Folder and then never apply it to my own biz.
The talking to cam short ones are way more up my alley but then I do them and it always feels rushed and like I’m trying to dance like a circus pony to make them AS EXCITING AND HOOKY AND SHORT as possible. By the time I “upload” I’m already like MEH.
Usually by the time I am motivated to do a sound reel the trending sound is WAY OLD. Like when “Good Morning America” talks about “a trending TikTok” that was literally trending months ago old.
But then it dawned on me a while ago.
Why am I not making reel videos that I actually enjoy creating?
I know how to make moving stories for big-platform morning shows. Stories where if it didn’t move your boss -to tears to laughter to anger to hope to disgust -then we had to go back to the editing drawing board.
So why on Earth wasn’t I applying these hard-earned skills I used as a producer and reporter to good USE ON DA GRAM GRID!??!
So on a whim one night in my bed, I whipped out my phone and voiced a script into my recorder app. I felt the same adrenaline rush I used to experience when the words would just flow out when I had to tell a story for the show.
I save all my old photos and video in Google Photos so it is beyond easy to search for themes, old footage, etc… I put my script to footage I already had and edited the video.
And guess what? It went viral (for me) and is the most shared and viewed piece of reel content I’ve ever made.
And you know what else? I LOVED making it. It was the easiest reel I’ve done, even though it took me longer to do than other ones I made.
When YOU are in YOUR flow or zone of genius, it feels right. It feels easy.
That is the feeling we should always be striving for. So what’s my takeaway? Well for one, start putting all your footage into Google Photos because it’s the best sorting and archival system when you’re wanting to quickly look for old videos and pics.
But the other takeaway is don’t try to fit the triangle into the peg type of thing. If you’re not LOVING making reels or posting to the grid or whatever, try to think of what you DO enjoy creating and apply it to the platform at hand.
Like if carousel posts rock your world and you LOVE making them….I bet they will do better than a subpar reel or TikTok you made just because you’re told “video is what the algorithm likes.”
You do you BOO!!!!
