UGC Marketing Guide On Instagram Reels To Curate, Share, Grow

On 5th August 2020, Instagram introduced the world to Reels – “A new way to create and discover short, entertaining videos on Instagram.” Since then, the hottest new content format has changed how social media users create and consume content. 

The impact of Instagram Reels is such that everyone wants to put on their best shoes and groove to trendy beats. This has increased the number of user-generated content produced.

Instagram Reels enable greater reach, engagement, and conversions for brands, becoming their secret sauce for viral growth. Looking at the growth potential, we bring you the ultimate UGC guide for Instagram Reels, all power-packed.

What Are Instagram Reels?

Reels are a fun way of creating videos on Instagram. Users record and edit 90-second multi-clip videos with audio, effects, and new creative tools, which can be shared on stories, explore feeds, and the reels tab on a users’ profile.

With a public account, this short format content is made available to a wider Instagram community through ‘Explore’, enabling reach to global audiences.

The best trending culture on Instagram is showcased via reels in the explore. But, just like the TikTok For You page, instead of seeing reels only from accounts you follow, there is an influx of aesthetically-pleasing Reels in the section.  

Furthermore, you will also see some reels with a ‘Featured’ label. Instagram chooses these reels to help users discover content that might entertain and inspire them. 

In a nutshell, Instagram Reels is a whole different vibe – it’s less chaotic and more curated. 

In the coming months, the platform is expected to alter the time frame beyond 7 and 30 days, and businesses will also be able to fetch insights on the desktop.

It is extremely important for any business to keep track of their audiences’ behavior, interactions, and engagement to ensure optimum growth.

How Can You Use Instagram Reels For Your Business?

Reels have opened up a world of opportunities for brands to reach, win attention, and ignite the interest of their target audience. It is fun to interact and build communities by sharing brand stories, snippets of what goes behind the scenes, getting educational, or just appreciating what their users say about them. 

Ready to get to grips with using Instagram Reels for your business? Let’s get started. 

1. Create Authentic Content

When Instagram launched ephemeral content, nobody could have imagined the success it had bagged. They are not just exciting but also captivating, providing brands with a massive opportunity to showcase their human side and connect with users. 

Brands can create authentic reels that resonate with their target audience and help build genuine relationships. 

A few best practices could be to:

• Introduce the people behind your brand
• Showcase behind the scenes
• USP of your brand
• The existing users’ experiences 
• Or just the usage of your product

Unlike other social media marketing content, reels are best leveraged as an indirect path for selling. 

Brand Example: Balmain

Balmain caters to luxury fashion and uses Reels to uniquely showcase the whole other side of the brand.

Contrary to the grid, which is sleek and sophisticated – Reels are a lot more fun and playful, showcasing behind-the-scenes. This content fetches millions of views, credited to authenticity and its potential to engage.

2.  Share Educational Content

Posting educational content is a great place to start with – give your followers tips and tricks on anything you hold expertise in. 

Sharing content that adds to the knowledge of your audience can help in better community building, while the brand can become a go-to voice. 

Brand Example: Buzzfeed Tasty

Buzzfeed Tasty’s sure-fire way of getting noticed is by producing clean reels featuring their signature dishes. 

The content is well conceptualised and educational, makings the views stop and engage with what’s present.

3. Showcase Products 

Instagram Reels can greatly help brands in improving their reach and drive conversions. 

And with Instagram Reels becoming shoppable, businesses stand a chance to showcase products and sell them directly. THIS ONE IS HUGE. Many brands have already started leveraging Shoppable Instagram Reels to increase sales and traffic on the Instagram Shop. 

Creatively showcase your products, and if a shopper gets inspired to purchase them, they can tap on ‘View Products’ to learn more about the product, save for later, or finalize their purchase.

Brand Example: Bershka

Bershka, a clothing retailer company, has recently started using Reels to sell creatively on the platform. 

They were already very artistically and strategically using Instagram Shop and influencer marketing to sell their line of the clothing line. Right from attracting audiences to their products, to having them engaged and providing an immersive purchase experience, Bershka is acing it all.

4. Share User-Generated Content

“Your company’s most valuable asset is how it is known to customers.” – Brain Tracy

Winning user trust, keeping them engaged, and providing an enhanced experience – has become more important than ever. But, the growing digital market competition spoils customers with choices. 

Here, UGC has been of great help to brands.

By repurposing content generated by their users, brands can satisfy the purchase anxiety of the users, showcase products in action, and inspire users to check their brand out.

Brand Example: Lush Cosmetics

Lush Cosmetics has made its brand stand out from the competition by using UGC as an Instagram post.

Recently, apart from just leveraging users’ content, the cosmetics brand has also started using employee-generated content(EGC) on Reels. 

They feature their staff’s skincare routine on the platform which effortlessly showcases the authenticity and value that the brand holds. 

5. Partner With Influencers

Influencer marketing has its moment. It can tap into the impulsive buying decisions of the users effortlessly. 

Influencers’ proven track record helps brands achieve their marketing objectives and might stir up your virality.

While Partnering with Influencers, here are a few pointers you might want to consider:

• Choose an influencer whose niche and aesthetically matches your brand for the content to resonate with the audience.
• It might always be about the number of followers influencers have, micro and nano influencers have greater rates of engagement rates. 
• Providing Influences with content production guidelines can significantly improve the output of Reels.

Analyse The Performance Of Your Instagram Reel 

In an update last year, Instagram made insights for Reels and Live available, helping creators and businesses understand the performance of their content.

For reels, metrics related to the number of plays, saves, likes, shares, and accounts reached will be included for the creator’s convenience. To ensure better reach, you can check the best time to post Instagram reels so that it reaches a wider audience.

In their official rollout of the update, Instagram explained, “We know that understanding more about how content is being distributed is important,” emphasizing a broader picture of the account’s performance.

How Can You Access Instagram’s Insights?

Content analytics is only available to business and creator accounts. To leverage insights provided by the platform, click on the ‘Insights’ button on your account profile page. From here, you can access up to 30 days of analytics for Static Posts, Stories, Reels, IGTVs, & Lives.

To know the performance,

• Go to the Reels tab and open a reel. From here, tap on the three-dot icon in the bottom right-hand corner, and choose ‘Insights.’
• Depending upon the number of days, you can see how your Reel has been performing in detail.

In the coming months, the platform is expected to alter the time frame beyond 7 and 30 days, and businesses will also be able to fetch insights on the desktop.

Any business must keep track of its audiences’ behavior, interactions, and engagement to ensure optimum growth.

Get Inspired By These Leading Brands

1. Adobe

Creativity is the core of Adobe’s brand identity. Hence, most of their Reels and social media content celebrate their users’ creativity.

It is a great example of using UGC in reels to attract, inspire and engage audiences.

Further, with Adobe already being a household name, sharing such content can help build a brand, foster a community, or share messages convincingly. 

Such reels are targeted to celebrate users more than brand promotions. 

2. Redbull

Redbull is one of those brands that have dominated the short format content on Instagram.

To strengthen its social media strategy, the functional beverage brand launched the #RedBullKeepsItReels campaign across various channels to coexist with Instagram’s newest launch. 

Red Bull makes a crackerjack in pushing brand values through a plethora of content that resonates with their audience. It uses Instagram Reels to push `the unique experiences of its users. 

The Future Of Instagram Reels

n particular, short format videos and Instagram Reels took off last year. So many users are jumping on board because of the major spike in community growth that the viral content provides. 

In 2022, we can only expect things to get bigger, better, and more significant as:

1. The Reels Algorithm Will Get More Advanced

The universe of Instagram’s mysterious algorithm shows that it gives less screen time to poor quality and visibly recycled content.

Though the approximate prediction for algorithm changes can be difficult, it might, however, get advanced with more personalization and diversification of the content they serve to users. 

2. Shoppable Instagram Reels

Instagram’s eCommerce features have gone through a major facelift, including the Instagram Shop button, Checkout, and product tagging on Reels.

The ‘Shoppable’ feature can help brands enhance their sales, as they can get into strategic partnerships with influencers or leverage the authentic voices of users to promote their products on reels creatively.

3. Branded Content Tags

The introduction of ‘Branded Content’ tags is a way for the platform to ensure that creators clearly disclose when they create branded content, increasing transparency and making it easier for brands and creators to repurpose compelling and influential content. 

4. Instagram Reels Will Be An Integral Part Of The App

Did you ever notice Instagram has already made Reels the center of their home page? This move is indicative of Instagram adapting to a reels-first approach, focusing more on video content.

Instagram has already started rolling out a full-screen view for Reels on the home feed, similar to what you see while scrolling through TikTok.

Apart from these, it is expected that the platform will roll out enhanced in-app video editing tools and insights. 

How Taggbox Plays Its Role

Taggbox is a user-generated content platform that enables brands to collect, curate and incorporate UGC wherever they want. Instagram Reels, the new hot and happening user-generated content, is also a major part of Taggbox. 

Taggbox users can supercharge their social feeds with trendy Instagram Reels. They can collect the Instagram Reels by checking the “Only Instagram Reels” option and use Hashtags or Handles to fetch the engaging Instagram Reels in their Social Feed. The best part? It comes with the auto-update feature. 

With Taggbox, brands get to explore opportunities to leverage their preferred Instagram Reels across different marketing touchpoints:

• Web Pages
• Email Campaigns
• Social Ads
• Digital Screens
• Events (Hybrid, Virtual, In-person)
• eCommerce Stores

Final Words

Instagram Reels have bolstered the growth of businesses. They can able to connect better with their target audience, enjoy enhanced audience reach and engagement opportunities, and ultimately sell more. 

Video content has caught every social media user’s attention like wildfire. Hence, regardless of the industry you cater to, there is a huge creative sales opportunity waiting for you with Instagram Reels.

Make the most of it while you can!