I recently joined Juan Galán’s IG Creator Academy (@ig.creatoracademy) course and thought that I’d share a few lessons I’ve learned about the seven things you need to do to create original reels in 2023 to connect with your audience on a deeper level. With social media platforms like Instagram placing a bigger emphasis on original content, I can’t stress enough how important it is to include original reel content in social media marketing strategy this year. 

7 Critical Steps to Creating Original Reels

Here are the seven things you need to know to create reels that build trust with your audience and set you apart from your competition: 

Step 1: Set a Goal

Like anything worthwhile, you want to make sure you know your reel's purpose. I suggest asking yourself questions such as: 

• What do you want your audience to take away from your reel?
• What emotion do you want your audience to feel?

If you create a video without purpose, it won’t do well, and we want your reels to do well. 

Step 2: Know Your Audience

This is another example of why doing your target market research is so essential! If you know what you’re audience wants to see (or keep it in mind), your reel will be more likely to do well. 

So get to know your audience by asking them questions in your stories with fun polls or about the type of content they’d like to see next. You could also ask them for ways skits that they want to see you do or, even better yet, get them involved in your reel in some way. 

Step 3: Audio Clips Help Spark Emotion

Juan pointed out that many individuals and businesses that create direct-to-camera (DTC) content typically don’t like having background music in their videos. This isn’t bad, as sometimes those tunes take away from the information being given. 

However, numerous studies support its use in videos. For example, music is a great mood enhancer. Having the right tunes playing at the right time can help tap into your audience's emotions and heighten them, as well as provide more context to what they see, making your video more popular and relatable. 

It’s often best to include music in reels where you’re telling a story, like how you started your business and how you got to where you are now. But please remember to turn the background music down so you (and your audience) can still hear all the wonderful things you tell them.

Here are some common platforms that you can use to get copyright-free and royalty-free audio clips: 

• https://www.videvo.net/
• https://mixkit.co/free-sound-effects/
• https://soundbible.com/
• https://www.123rf.com/stock-audio/

If you use songs by famous artists, ensure you can use those clips before adding them to your videos. You don’t want to impede anyone’s copyright claims. Please pay for clips that are copyright protected. 

Step 4: Write a Script

Here are some do’s and don'ts for writing your script: 

• Don’t write something that you hate or doesn’t reflect your or your brand’s personality. Your audience will see through it very quickly, and it will affect the performance of your reel. 
• Make your reel easy to read. That may look different depending on what works for you, but many people find writing each sentence on a separate line helpful. You can also follow more traditional movie or theater script outlines.
• Don’t forget to read your script out loud during your editing process. You wouldn’t believe the number of mistakes or awkward phrasing you will catch by doing that. 
• Get a bit of practice before you start recording your reel. It helps you feel more comfortable with the script and what you have to say on camera. 
• Create scripts for all of your reels that require talking. That includes on and off-screen voice recordings as well. It’ll help with your flow and reduce the number of “umms” you say. 

Step 5: Write the Caption

Depending on the length of your original reel, you may not have to write a lengthy caption, as most of the information your audience needs to know is already included in the video. The rule of thumb here is if the video is longer than 60 seconds, write a short caption, but if it’s shorter than 60 seconds, write a longer caption. 

The only caveat I’d put on this is that you still need to write captions. In addition, you still need to include keywords in your caption to help the algorithm categorize and place your content with the right people. 

Step 6: Record Your Reel

The good news is you don’t need a fancy camera to record your reel. Your smartphone will do the job well. But here are some things to keep in mind: 

• Your lighting matters. Try to be in a well-lit area and use a backlight if needed. Your audience wants to see you.
• Your framing matters too. Make sure we can see you!
• Speak clearly. You want your message to be loud and clear, and it won’t if you aren’t enunciating your words. 
• Read your script. You didn’t go to all that work and effort to just go off script at the end. It guides you through your skit and keeps you on track. 
• Don’t forget to change backgrounds or cut to a new viewpoint every two to three seconds. This keeps your video engaging and dynamic.

Step 7: Edit It

This is the fun part, where you can add any filters, effects, and background music to your reel if it needs it. Remember to have fun while keeping in mind your goals and your audience’s preferences. Also, don’t forget to keep your reel dynamic by zooming in and out on your face as you’re talking. 

Another important tidbit to remember is to trim out excess footage, blank space, word ticks you use (like “umm”), or tangents you had while recording. These must be cut to keep your pace consistent and your video footage dynamic. 

If you’re looking for some good video editing software to use, I’d recommend these platforms: 

• Splice
• Capcut
• InShot
• Instagram
• TikTok

In Summary 

Voila! That’s how you create an outstanding original reel in 2023. It may seem like a lot of work, but it’s not, especially if you batch a bunch of reel content and finish it all in a few days. I also don’t want you to panic about the entire process, it’s a lot of fun, and you get to do many new and wacky things. 

If there’s one thing you can do for your business this year to help step up your social media marketing strategy while saving time, check out my pre-made Instagram templates. All you need to do is insert your product or service’s information into the templates and post it.