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Aren't Instagram reels addictive? Haven't you gone through them like you do French Fries? What makes them so addictive? Have you ever wondered what makes an Instagram reels video viral? If you are a budding Instagrammer, you would naturally have wanted to create the next Insta viral reel, right? But, how? What makes for viral reels? How to make your Instagram reel viral?
Get answers to all your questions with the below blueprint on how to make viral reels on Instagram - from idea to the final video you upload to Instagram and make your Instagram reels video viral.
In this article
Part 1. Decoding the Instagram Reels Algorithm
All of us have seen them, those viral Instagram reels. All of us have wondered about how lucky the creators must be whose videos have gone viral. As an Instagrammer, you must be wanting similar fame and recognition for yourself and your videos, right? What if we told you that it is not luck but a formula that works? Uh huh!
It is not luck but a repeatable formula that makes for viral Insta reels. The creators are not lucky; they are smart and are using a blueprint to make viral Instagram reels. They have learnt to master the Instagram algorithm, viewer psychology, and how to edit their videos for maximum impact. You can learn it, too!
Here are the top Instagram algorithm metrics you need to know about.
1. MIRF - Most Important Ranking Factors
How does an Instagram reel go viral? These are the most important ranking factors involved:
- Watch Time (and Replays)
Watch time is a key metric that helps you identify when and where precisely do users become disengaged with your content. When you want to go viral, you want the maximum possible engagement, which means maximum possible watch time. In short, a watch time that is about as long as the length of your content.
Similarly, the Replays metric is equally important as it lets you know which of your content was watched repeatedly. This lets you know that users engaged more with that content.
- Completion Rate
If your reels are being watched in entirety, this means that viewers find your content engaging from start to finish. Congratulations! This also means that such users are going to watch your other content and are likely to share your reels.
- Shares, Comments, and Saves
Which brings us to engagement by way of sharing, commenting and saving. You might not think much of it, but the Instagram algorithm notes how many times your reels are shared, commented upon, and saved. Sharing reels is the steppingstone you need from your viewers on your way to virality! When your viewers comment on videos, that means they found your content evocative enough that made them take that effort to comment. When they save your reels, that's a sign they found your content meaningful enough that they saved it for future viewing/ sharing.
2. Background Score - Music That Moves
You know the power of audio; how the appropriate background music can really bring out the elements in a video. That is one of the prime factors that helps make viral reels on Instagram. How can you make it better? Instagram algorithm is tuned towards reels that use trending audio. This is why when you are watching trending reels and viral Instagram reels, you will see that a lot of them are using audio that is trending.
3. Grabbing Attention - The 3-second Window
Attention window of your video is critical in making it viral, and, sadly, that's just about 3 seconds. So, you have about 3 seconds to hold your viewers' attention on your reel. If not, they scroll to another. This metric is called Hook Rate - a measure of how quickly your reel is able to capture viewers' attention.
Part 2. What's Your Hook?
Now that you know the basic metrics that Instagram deploys, let's talk about what even constitutes a good Instagram reel. Sure, on the surface it looks like users are posting anything and everything on the service, and other users are lapping it up. But there is some method to this apparent madness - they are simply following trends, and you can, too!
1. Spot the Latest Trends
Social media has always been transitory, what's hot today is not tomorrow. To that effect, if your Instagram reels are on trend, you are more likely to garner views, likes, comments and shares. Nobody likes to share outdated content with friends, so if your content is in line with the latest trends, nobody is going to have a problem engaging with it.
To spot the latest trends:
- Keep scrolling your feed and make note of what's repeating, such as music, the kind of effects, the kind of colors, the kind of topics, content formats, etc.
- Follow some trend-spotting accounts.
- Audio trends are easy to discover; Instagram shows an upward-pointing arrow by those tracks.
2. Engage with Viral Formats
Something or the other is always trending, right? Using the above information on how to spot the latest trends, when you have discovered that certain audio tracks, certain effects, certain content formats are repeating, this means that they are in trend. What you need to do is focus your content on and around those trends.
For example, if you find that there is a trend where people are challenging themselves to do something and posting reels about it, you do the same. If you see they are using trending audio tracks in the background with funky popover text effects to add drama, you do the same. That way, you become part of the trend, and chances of your reel going viral get higher.
3. Eyeball-driving Viral Reel Formats
Trendspotting and engaging won't do much if you don't make your reels in certain video formats that are likely to draw more eyeballs. These are colloquially called viral reel formats. What does that mean? Viral reel formats are, broadly put, the trending content narrative that is hooking people of late. Some examples include:
- The challenge format where you complete some challenge.
- Before/ After showcases where you show an eye-catching before/ after transformation.
- Plot twists! People love plot twists; they love when they see something they weren't expecting!
- Reverse Reveal, where you bedazzle users with the final product first and then show them how to do it afterward, nets huge numbers in engagement every time!
When you stay abreast with the video formats that are trending and going viral and make reels in those formats, you stand a better chance at going viral!
Part 3. Filming Tips
Every story becomes relevant and poignant because of how it is told. Be it longform movie or seconds-long Instagram reel, everyone can do with tips to make their craft better. Here are the top tips for viral Instagram reels:
1. The Ideal Length
You know why Instagram reels work? It's because they are short, engaging and users move on to the next within seconds. That feeds into their doomscrolling, as well as works for creators and marketers alike. The ideal reel length is under 15 seconds, as, sadly, that's about how long the average attention span is nowadays for users scrolling through Instagram reels. They want to be excited and entertained; they want to pass time. They are not looking for minutes and hours-long videos.
2. The Lighting
Lighting plays a crucial role in everyday life and so is true of Instagram reels. Badly lit reels are not going to get you the kind of fame you seek. Make sure your videos are being shot in properly lit spaces for maximum effect.
3. Shoot to Edit
One way of saving yourself a lot of time and energy is to plan your video shoot. Think of the transitions and the audio you might want to use. Think how you will project and pace the story. Shooting with this in mind will give you video clips that require little editing and will save you a lot of time later on during the editing stage.
Part 4. The (He)art of The Reel - Editing Your Way to Virality
Reels that make the maximum impact and go viral are not happenstance, no matter how easy they seem to flow. That flow is built, step by step, first in the planning stage and later in the editing stage. Editing your video is key to making your Instagram reel viral.
1. Pacing Your Reel
You only have a few seconds not just to make an impact but to leave a mark on your viewers. Keep that in mind, and you will realize that you should not be wasting a single frame with fluff that could be eliminated! Each frame should push your narration forward to create a high-energy Instagram reel that captures eyeballs and attention!
2. Syncing Your Video to The Trending Audio
Using trending audio is all well and good, but how do you create content that seems synchronized to said audio? That is not easily done; you're not a choreographer! However, you have help.
First, you know the basics of syncing - you can time your moves according to the rhythm of the audio. Second, how about you bolster it with smart AI technology with video editing tools such as Wondershare Filmora that offers you a full audio waveform view? Audio waveform makes it super easy to time your cuts to the beat with surgical precision.
3. The Hook That Reels Them In
Really, people are not truly paying attention when scrolling through their Instagram feeds. They do that to while away time. What you do in the first 3 seconds can be the difference between getting scrolled or getting viewed, so make those seconds count. How? Use catchy intros that grab attention. Scroll through your feed and see what grabbed your attention. Try that and see!
4. Professional Effects and Transitions
Movement and energy in Instagram reels also come through by way of transitions and effects. A modern video editor allows you to work with high-quality transitions and effects along with professional video editing features such as color grading, keyframing, etc. to make your video look polished, well-edited and stand out. Video editing tools such as Filmora also offer a rich library of effects, transitions, music, and more for you to use at the click of a button and notch up the quality of your Instagram reels in seconds!
5. Accessibility Pays
Sure, most Instagram users watch videos with sound, but a large section still prefers to watch them without sound. Using captions makes your reels more accessible, and when people see your reel in a place where they cannot use sound, they are more likely to view your content if they see it has captions. And, you don't have to work through the night captioning your reel; tools like Filmora do it for you at the click of a button, literally, with features such as the Speech-to-Text that generates subtitles automatically using AI.
Part 5. Captioning Tips
Captioning is an important addition to every Instagram reel. Below are things to keep in mind.
- KISS - Keep It Short and Simple: Keeping your caption short and simple ensures that the user is able to retain focus on the content rather than tiring out going through the captions.
- Evoke Curiosity: Captions that question evoke organic engagement because they make the user pause and think, naturally. Think, "Did You Know...?" or "What! This Is New!" to inspire natural curiosity that makes users pause and go through your content organically.
- Guided Engagement: When you make users choose to engage with you by giving them a strong call-to-action, they are more likely to ponder over it and do it. You do not want to leave it to chance and their own thoughts here, you want to guide them to do what you want them to do.
Part 6. How to Hashtag and When to Post
Here are some considerations regarding use of tags, the best time to post your reels, and such.
1. Tagging It Right
Tags are important. Using the right tags ensures that your Instagram reels are found more easily and readily when users search for content, and similarly tagged content is likely to show up/ rank higher. But do not overdo it, use just about 3-4 tags and no more. People who use a long train of tags seem desperate to users and they might get put off.
2. The Best Time to Post is ...
Did you know that there actually is a golden period you should be posting your reels in for maximum impact and efficacy? The Instagram Insights give you a decent picture of when you should be posting.
Step1Go into Instagram Insights by tapping the hamburger menu and selecting Insights.
Step2Tap Total Followers to see demographic information and activity patterns, including hours and days. This is key to understanding when the best time to post is.
That said, you would likely want to attract a broader spectrum of viewers, so here's a distillation of insights that you might find helpful:
- Gen Z is most active during class breaks, after school, and late at night. This means you should target the afternoon and evening times.
- Millennials are most active early morning before their day starts, around lunch, or after hours. This means you should target early morning hours, lunch hours, and evening times.
- If you are targeting Gen X, your best time for your reels is around early mornings and early evenings.
Part 7. Engagement and Analysis
You might think that once you post your reel, it is out of your hands. However, that is far from the truth. You still have a lot in your hands to signal engagement to the algorithm.
1. Stick Around for A While
Once your reel is out there, stick around a while to engage with comments on your reels. Just this much does two things - it signals high engagement to the algorithm, and it develops a connect with your viewers.
2. Analyze Your Reel Performance
Analyzing your content regularly keeps you abreast with key information metrics related to what is working for you and what is not. Check your Instagram Insights (hamburger menu > Insights) and see relevant metrics such as Watch Time, Replays, etc. This gives you much-needed insights into where your viewers are disengaging and how much are they engaging, including when. You then use this information to learn and do better with your next reel. It's a process, yes!
Conclusion
To summarize; going viral on Instagram is not luck but a method. With the 7-step blueprint mentioned above, you have all the info you need to be the next viral reel maker on Instagram.
What's more, to make your job even easier, there are tools you can use such as Wondershare Filmora, that is about the most fun video editor you've ever used. Not only does it feature powerful, professional-level tools but it is also full of assets such as audio libraries, text effects, transitions, animations, and so much more, that are relevant to making your next Instagram reel viral. Download Filmora for free and see for yourself how easy it is to make your Instagram reels stand out with the tool designed to make you be the one trending next on social media!
