>>5982984Reels / video are the future of Instagram, and likely every other social media platform going forward. The head of Instagram actually came out quite a while ago and explicitly said that IG is "no longer" a photo sharing platform. TikTok proved how powerful for growth and user engagement video is vs static content. It's no secret that IG is trying to catch up to them.
It's a hard pill to swallow, but it's the truth. There are plenty of ways to share static work as a video (10 second video zoomed in on a detail, pulling back to reveal whole piece, etc.), but it definitely takes a bit of extra effort. It's really not that bad though once you get a formula down. The videos don't need to be super complicated, they just need to be video.
The benefits are pretty clear. Personally speaking, my IG engagement rate is in the gutter for my regular post. ~5000 followers with 50-100 likes per image. Used to be triple that at minimum with less followers. Awful reach, no hashtag performance. Started posting Reels and it's blatantly obvious to me that IG is still pushing them hard. My Reels posts bring in more new followers than ever before, the posts still get pushed to new people weeks after I posted them, they have a much higher reach + engagement rate.
