Instagram Reels Tutorial: Your Complete Guide for 2024 (Perfect for Beginners)

Have you ever looked at someone else’s Instagram Reels and thought, “How do they do that?”

Or on the opposite side of the spectrum, are you looking at this article right now like, “What the heck is an Instagram Reel?”

No matter how much or how little you know about Reels, if you want all of your Instagram Reels questions answered in one article, you clicked on the right one.

So keep reading.

Today, we’re giving a complete guide, breakdown, and tutorial to Instagram Reels.

We’re going to cover questions like, what are Instagram Reels? How do they work?

How do you make them? What are some ideas you can use for your business?

How do you do all the little tips and tricks to make your Reels fun and engaging, like adding text, songs, etc.? We’re covering it all.

Now, this feature is not BRAND new, so there may be things you already know about Reels and you’re just looking to get a specific question answered.

If that’s you, then you can go ahead and skip to the section you’re looking for.

But if you’ve never posted an Instagram Reel before, or don’t feel super confident about them, we’d suggest reading this entire post.

So that after you finish, you can walk away feeling like an IG PRO!

What Are Instagram Reels?

An Instagram Reel is a 60-second video you can publish either to your main feed and Reels feed, or just to your Reels feed, on Instagram.

Instagram says Reels are, “a new way to create and discover short, entertaining videos on Instagram.”

Because they can only be 60 seconds long, you have to use those 60 seconds wisely to either:

• entertain,
• inform, or
• provide value in some way to your audience

Now if you’re thinking, “Hmm.. this sounds familiar..” you’re right, because it is!

TikTok is another social media platform that is solely composed of short entertaining and informative videos like these.

If you read our previous post with the latest Instagram updates, you knew we said that Reels are just the Instagram version of TikTok!

TikTok blew up in 2020 with everybody being at home, scrolling through social media looking to be entertained… and Instagram was not about to have that.

We all remember what happened to Snapchat. They came out with Stories, so Instagram came out with Stories.

Instagram grew, Snapchat did not.

So naturally, as soon as TikTok started getting huge waves of attention…

…Instagram launched a similar feature on their app, called Reels, to draw the traffic back to their platform.

So that’s what Reels are and how they got here.

Different Types Of Instagram Reels And Ideas For Your Business

We’re going to show lots of examples for this part as well, so if you’re still a little unsure of what Reels are or what they look like, hopefully, this will clear that up.

Earlier we said Instagram Reels should entertain, inform, or provide value.

So, we want to show what that looks like and what people are actually posting.

And it’s because we would suggest including a mix of both if you include Reels when creating an Instagram marketing strategy for your business.

1. Entertaining Reels

These are probably the most popular, and generally are just humorous or follow a TikTok trend.

These can include anything from TikTok dances, to people doing funny skits, and more.

Another funny trend is to use audio from a TV show, or a movie, or something, and use it on a video clip that’s totally unrelated, but somehow makes sense.

Here is an example of someone using audio from the TV show New Girl…

…to make a joke about how people are always surprised at how many calories athletes have to consume.

Different accounts and businesses will use that same audio and trend for a Reel, and just change the context to be something related to their business.

For example, here’s the LYFE Marketing version we did of that trend.

And when you click on the “original audio” at the bottom of the Reel, you can see all the different accounts and businesses that have used that audio.

This is great for business owners to peruse through to get ideas for what they can post, and it’s also something users enjoy for binge-watching funny material.

Here’s another example of an entertaining Instagram Reel in the form of a skit. Take a look.

So as you saw, she’s making a joke about gen z vs millennials in the workplace.

One thing to note that is different about hers is that this is her original audio.

She created this skit entirely from scratch, and is not using audio from another Instagram account, or an audio clip from a TV show, etc.

So that’s one way to do a skit. Another way is to use an existing song or audio that is usually used for certain types of skits.

Here’s an example of that with a Reel a veterinarian made doing a skit of him consulting with his patients about their pet.

The filter that made his face look jiggly like that with the sound effect playing at the same time is one of those common trends.

Where again, if you tap on that audio, you can see lots of people doing this type of trend, and just changing the context to fit their account or business.

And when we say popular, we mean that Instagram Reel of his has 2.7 million views. And he only has 369K followers on Instagram!

So that’s a PRO tip here that we don’t want you to miss.

Using popular songs or sounds for the audio will help you get extended reach beyond your existing followers.

When it comes to Reels, the song or sound used is just as searchable and valuable as hashtags (if not more so!).

So to get more funny ideas for Reels that you could make for your business, the first thing we would do is just spend some time on the app.

Watch Reels in your personal time and spend some time watching and scrolling, making note of the ones you find funny or clever.

That’s the best way to get a real understanding of “Instagram humor” or “TikTok humor”.

It is simply to get on the platform and consume what other people are posting.

2. Informative Reels

Here’s an example of an informative Reel we made that provides value to our audience.

As you can see, we essentially jumped in front of the camera and talked for 30 seconds.

There was minimal editing that went into it, which we’ll get into in a little bit.

But, it’s often a comfort for business owners who are not super tech-savvy to know that…

…you don’t have to be a TikTok queen to make an effective Reel and get decent views.

That one got over 6,000 views for us!

Here is another example of an Instagram Reel a realtor made giving out home buying tips.

Instead of talking in hers, she just pointed to nothing in the air when she recorded.

And then, went back and added text over the areas where she was pointing, and added a popular song to go with it (again, to get that extra reach!)

And just for good measure, here is one more example of an informative Instagram Reel we made.

Again you can see one of our team members is just pointing at the air and then went back and added the text later.

So with informational Reels, you want to provide value to your audience, either with what you say or with the text on the screen.

And when we talk about providing value, we mean solving your target audience’s goals and pain points as it relates to your business or industry.

3. Remix Reels

Similar to TikTok’s “Duet” feature, Instagram has the Remix feature where you can add your Reel to someone else’s.

Here’s an example of one we did.

So in this example, the group of people on the left are people we don’t know in real life.

They are just a group of people that made that Reel on their own of them just sitting there and then acting aggravated at something.

They made that Instagram Reel, hoping people would Remix it and add to it, making countless different scenarios of what they could be aggravated at.

In this case, Sean remixed it to make it sound like he was telling them they have to post every day to grow.

This is funny in the marketing world because most people don’t have time to do that.

And yes, we get a similar ugh type of reaction when we tell them they need to post more often (which is why they get our reliable Instagram video management services to do it for them).

In that case, we remixed somebody else’s Reel.

In this example we’re about to show you, we made a Reel hoping others will Remix it. Take a look.

So in that case, other people can remix it and add their own Instagram Reel to it side by side with ours.

They can do it either by sharing funny business owner things, or stories that allude to them being a small business owner and about that SMBO life.

The idea here is to engage our audience and connect with them while simultaneously getting our branding passed around organically.

And this is because everyone who sees not just our original Reel, but all the remixes people make of our reel, will see our LYFE Marketing merch in it.

So those are the 3 basic types of Reels you can make.

Before we show you how to make them, we want to briefly touch on why Reels even matter in the first place.

Benefits Of  Using Instagram Reels For Your Business

1. Extended reach and engagement

Like we said earlier, that veterinarian we looked at gets millions of views on his Reels, even though he had nowhere near millions of followers.

Reels are the newest feature Instagram has put out, and if you’ve read our other posts before, you know that the algorithm favors the newest features.

Be sure to check out our post with effective Instagram algorithm hacks next to learn more about it.

They’ve made it so that their Instagram Reels are the first and biggest thing you see when you search for a hashtag.

So if you’ve been feeling stuck in your Instagram growth…

…start making Reels as soon as you’re done reading this for extra reach and get more customer engagement.

2. A stronger brand-consumer relationship.

People buy from businesses they trust, and it doesn’t matter if you’re B2B or B2C.

Your target audience will feel more comfortable buying from you if they’ve spent loads of time consuming your content on social media.

Instagram reels are such easy bites of content to consume, that it makes it easy for your audience to just sit and watch your content endlessly!

The longer you can keep them entertained and informed with valuable info…

…the more likely they will be to choose you over your competitors when the time comes for them to make a buying decision.

So now let’s talk about how to make Reels.

If you want to learn how to create them, then scroll up, as we share a walkthrough guide on the video at the top of this post.

Wrapping Up

Our goal for this post was to help people who are brand new to Reels get a feel for what they are about and how to make them.

Also, to help people who are not new to Reels perfect their skills with it.

So hopefully, you can now create your own Instagram Reels for your business!

If you need more help with your Instagram Reels, no worries. We’d love to help businesses like yours.

Simply schedule a meeting today to get started.