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There are 6 main components of having an engaging and successful Instagram Reel:

1. Hook
2. Content
3. Flow and Engagement
4. Brand Identity
5. Payoff
6. Consistency

All of these components, if done correctly, will ensure your video goes viral and stays viral.

Research Your Audience: Understand who your target audience is, what they are interested in, and what kind of content resonates with them. For example, my target audience is the younger audience in Reels who like funny videos and fashion.

However, in order to be able to make a video that has these qualities, we need to understand what causes a video to actually go viral and understand the algorithm as a whole.

Understanding the Algorithm

Algorithm: The number one metric that Instagram uses to gauge how well your content is performing is watch time. Because the majority of people who see videos do not like, comment, or share, but it is noted the time where everyone scrolls. Shares and Saves are then the 2nd and 3rd most important metrics, respectively.

How Does a Video Go Viral?

When you post something on Instagram, that post is initially shared with the first 10% of your followers. But who are these first 10%?

They are the people who have been following you and interacting with your account from the beginning, such as liking, commenting when the post is live, or replying to your stories.

Your post will also be shared with a certain amount of people that don't follow you, but Instagram thinks they may like your content based on other content they have interacted with. I cannot say for sure what this percentage is, but due to recent algorithm changes I would say it's probably like 70% your followers and 30% not.

Now, every post you make has certain parameters. When these parameters are met, the post is pushed further to the next set of followers. This phase is the initial.

What is "Initial"?

In simple terms, "initial" represents the average engagement of multiple posts. Here's an example: Suppose you have 1k followers, and on average, within 10 minutes, you're getting 70 likes and 5 comments. This average is obtained by analyzing the last 10-20 posts.

Why is "initial" so important?

Whenever you make a post on Instagram, if the post fails to surpass the initial engagement, it acts as an instant result of whether or not that content is going to work on Instagram. This is because it reflects the reaction of your audience, the same first 10% of people who love your content. If the post fails to please them, it lacks something. So, for the next time, try to improve.

As a post goes viral, it will rise up and up through groups of more people, and if it keeps getting good interactions, it will be on more people's explore page.

Optimizing Content for the Algorithm

So now that we understand how the algorithm works, how can we optimize our content for it?

For this I always suggest people to be aware the next time they are looking at reels. What videos keep you captivated vs which ones do you scroll right past? Think about if I knew nothing of my content, would I watch it or not, or at what point would I scroll?

1. Hook

If you do nothing else, do this!

You need to prove to your viewer within the first 2 seconds of your video that it is worth watching. This can be done in many ways depending on your niche. Here are some suggestions and examples that can be used:

(Copy + tweak these)

If done correctly, this will give a sense of desire and curiosity in the viewer, hopefully pushing them to watch the video all the way through.

2. Content

I can't stress this enough, but the truth of the matter is your video probably sucks. People always ask me "why is my video only getting 200-400 views? I spent a while making it blah blah." As a content creator you have to practice and learn and actually improve if you want to get the views. It took me over 8 months of posting daily to get a video with over 1000 likes. So what do I do!?

Make engaging content that people get value from watching. People don't like watching ads (unless they're entertaining). Think to yourself "What is the viewer gaining from watching this video?" If the answer is only that they should buy your product, chances are it's not gonna do well.

If I was EmployTest, I would take an educational stance and try and teach the audience something about your niche (testing, applicants, etc.) and then round it out with a reason why your tests are the best solution to something.

I would also make some videos that are purely funny (like the AI caveman stuff). These types of videos are kinda outliers to all this stuff because they are funny, and funny videos kinda adhere to their own rules of just being funny enough to get likes and shares. Although honestly, they may be less funny to people that aren't as familiar with EmployTest... TL;DR: Funny shouldn't be your main focus but worth doing occasionally.

How to Get Followers

People will follow your account from reels if they feel they will gain value from it. As simple as that. Make following your account worth it for your target audience, hence a focus on educational content.

3. Flow and Engagement

Guys, like it or not, we are in a time where people have insanely short attention spans and Instagram makes it so easy to simply scroll to the next video. That's why hooks are so important. But getting someone hooked is not enough to keep them engaged throughout the whole video. Your content must also flow and change.

From the videos I've seen so far, y'all are pretty good at doing this. The graphics and the movement through the videos does flow well, it's just the content could be a little bit more interesting. I suggest as a general frame to have some sort of compelling change every 1.5 seconds in a video. This could be anything as a transition, graphic on the screen, sound bite, whatever, just something new that keeps people compelled.

I also suggest looking at insights on specific posts to see what your average watch time is. If on a video you have, everyone stops watching after 5 seconds, it might be valuable to go at the 5 second mark and add something that will hook people in again.

4. Brand Identity

Everyone who knows marketing is familiar with brand identity. It's not any different on Instagram. Find your Identity, Stick to It, Make It Recognizable. It's not my place to say what y'all's identity is, but I'm sure you have it. Make sure to incorporate this in your videos so that your content stays recognizable even from just viewing the first 2 seconds. People will associate your brand with your identity, the things that make your videos "your videos." And that will provide more of a reason for people to follow you.

5. Payoff

Imagine you have the best hook ever. People watch your video all the way through, but the payoff at the end doesn't match the quality of the hook. People are going to be disappointed and feel like they wasted their time watching the video. That's a worst case scenario. You need to connect your ending with the hook and make it pay off in the end. Your ending doesn't necessarily have to be the answer to the question you asked in the hook (though it can be). It just has to be a positive ending that makes people glad they watched the video till the end. Another good example of a payoff is a joke that makes people laugh.

6. Consistency

Consistency is key. I'll say this again: It took me 8 months of daily consistent posting to get a viral video. Viral videos are viral because they deviate from the norm and they are much more entertaining and quality than most videos. There are thousands of things that go into play when determining how a video does on Instagram, but quality content and following these steps will increase your odds of your video going viral. The number one aspect is staying consistent. The first video you make isn't going to go viral, neither is the second or the third or probably the first bunch, but that's okay because if you stay consistent, eventually it will. You gotta want it and you gotta improve. On the other hand, there are people who have been making videos for 10 years and they still don't get viral videos because they're not learning anything from their failures.

Those are the main steps for making good content. I still got more information though.

How to Go Viral Every Single Time

Yeah, you read the title right. After learning everything I just told you, here's the trick to increase your viral videos. Smart stealing. It takes a while to be able to learn all this stuff and do it effectively, but there are people who already know how to do it. Find around five creators that make similar content that you want to in your niche or in their respective niche. Scroll through their account and find their videos that went the most viral, over 100,000 views minimum. Steal their video. Yep, if it works with them, most likely it's going to work for you if you can execute it right. Now obviously don't steal it exactly, but put your own spin on it, steal their format. It feels kind of weird to do this, but realistically this is the fastest way. This means following trends and using audios that are popular.

Technical Elements

Hashtags

Hashtags are used to show your content to people that interact with specific topics. For example, #test, if you put this on your video, it is going to show your content to people who interact with videos that have #test on it. People debate over if hashtags are worth using or not. In my opinion, it's not really going to change much. Only thing you have to think about is you're using a bunch of hashtags, you're decreasing the amount of people who follow you who are going to see the video. That can be a bad thing because people who already follow you are much more likely to interact with your content. But on the other side, it's not necessarily that because if your content's good enough, it'll speak for itself. I would say don't use more than five hashtags though and don't bank on them doing much.

Captions

Captions can be important for keyword optimization. Instagram is changing their algorithm to allow more search in the explore page. I suggest using a slightly summarized version of the script as your caption as well as a prompt or something that entices people into leaving a comment. This could be a question, asking people to leave their opinion, leave an emoji, or saying "comment blank if you want me to send this XYZ." Try to provide a next step for someone who's interested in your product to do, like check out the website or check out the page.

Interactions

You need to interact with every single person who interacts with you. This means responding to every comment and every DM. If I leave a comment, I want to hear from the creator, and the same thing with dms. This increases people's opinion and likelihood of buying from a brand. Ask people if they have any questions.

Thumbnail

Instagram allows you to put a thumbnail on your posts when you're posting. This is a great way to engage people to click on your video from your account or the explorer page. You can make your own thumbnail, but it's honestly not worth it. Just slide through your video and find a part that says something on there about the video and the picture is compelling enough to click on it. Always think from a third party perspective: would I click on this video?

Close Captions

Always put close captions on your videos, there's really no reason not to. It allows people to watch the video in any situation even if they don't have audio. There are many places you can do closed captions such as TikTok or CapCut.

How to Grow Efficiency

All this is a lot of work, but if you can batch out videos, it makes it a lot more manageable to post. Come up with 5 to 10 video ideas or videos to steal. And film them all at once, edit them all at once, and release them periodically. This will cut down on work that you have to do on a day-to-day basis and allow you to focus on other things.

Insights

Creator insights on your video and your account are very useful and provide great metrics on how your videos are doing. You can look through these to find out a lot of different information such as watch time and the hours where your followers are the most active. You should try and post during the time that your followers are most active to allow for that first 10% to react well.

Exporting and Format

Instagram uploads in 1080 by 1920 pixels. Make sure you export your video from your editing software is in this format and it doesn't get compressed. Often times videos will get compressed when they get sent in external sites such as email or text. I suggest if you have to move your video to upload it to a Dropbox or G Drive and make sure that it stays in this format. Also make sure that you have "upload in highest quality" selecting on your settings while posting.

Other Creators

There are thousands of people online who are giving out information about how to go viral on social media for free. All this information I've learned myself or through these people. Check out the Instagram marketing subreddit r/InstagramMarketing. Here are also some other good creators on Instagram who make informative information on this topic: @edward.builds, @iamjadenly, and @personalbrandlaunch.

Conclusion

If I was smart, I would focus on finding creators who make similar educational content while selling a product, find the most viral videos, steal the format, and create engaging educational content that resonates with people and promotes your products. Stick with it, be consistent, and grow.

Have Any Questions?

Let me know, I'm happy to answer and help out. Feel free to send me an email: crowellnicholas1@gmail.com or call me at 404-834-2723. Also check out my Instagram @nicov3rde if you're interested in the type of content I make.