7. Reel Talk

Let’s get Real about Reels. Like em or hate em they’re here to stay on Instagram and I’ve got some simple ways you can start to create your own today! Here’s my 3 favorite tips and tricks for creating better reels on IG. 

1- Have a Plan

2- Keep it Simple

3- Match the Mood

In this episode of the Podcast we’ll cover each of these 3 tips and get you on your way to creating your own IG Reel with ease. 

But First - Real Talk

I’m talking life chatter not the IG kind. Does time feel like it’s flying to you or is it just me? We’re in the middle of August and somehow time has hit the gas pedal to the metal and it seems to be warping even faster than usual. 

My daughter has graduated from pre-school, ended daycare and is currently in her second week of Day Camp. She enters Kindergarten in a few short weeks. I swear she’s grown a foot and gained 10lbs and isn’t my tiny baby in what feels like an overnight occurrence. 

Summer has been full of so many moments of utter bliss and joy but yet also has had moments that have pushed me to the brink of losing my patience and questioning my sanity. We’ve been smacked with our umpteenth round of illnesses and both kids, the dog and myself are all on daily medication regiments leaving me feeling like a nurse in an insane asylum some days! 

Despite the whirlwind, I’ve been hustlin hard to complete the creation of the content for our first round of Memory Maker’s Masterclass. This month, we’re covering all things Video. I asked our Founding Members and followers on IG what it is that they want to learn most about Video and the resounding answer was: HOW DO I MAKE AN INSTAGRAM REEL?

Most of our followers love watching and consuming IG reels and TikToks as they peruse the social media apps, but have no clue how to start their own. I love creating IG reels and short video films to document and capture this fleeting time in life. It helps me highlight the golden moments and gives me space to commit these moments to memories that can be shared beyond the confines of my own heart. 

My goal with this episode is to cover the basics of IG reels and leave you walking away with a plan you can use to make your own TODAY! 

Reels add joy to my life and can bring some to your life too. Because of that, I want to be here today to share with you HOW you can do it and support you on your journey in creating your own video reels. And if you find that they just frustrate you more or don’t add value to your life – this is your permission slip to forget about them! No pressure here!

Let’s jump in to my 3 biggest tips for creating IG Reels:

1- Have a Plan

Know the story you want to tell and aim to tell it as succinctly as possible. 

I have had a lot of practice filming content and creating IG reels. I look at moments I am experiencing now  with an eye towards how I would convey the feeling I am experiencing and the magic I want to remember from that particular “scene” in my life. Not all moments are IG reel worthy or are even anything I want to film. But the moments where my gut tells me, man I am sure going to miss this when we outgrow this phase, or I think to myself - it’s so cute when my kid says or does “x,y or z” and I don’t want to forget this. 

I get specific about what it is that I am noticing and what I want to focus on capturing. That becomes my story. My plan becomes centered around How to capture clips of those moments. If you haven’t had a chance to listen to Episode 6 yet - I cover the 6 shots I always try to get of any given scene when I am creating a video story. It’s a great overview of how I look at scenes and create my plan for the types of clips to capture when I am documenting moments unfold. 

For starters- I never record my reels using the Instagram App. I always pre-record short clips on the go / in the moment and then edit them together later using either IG or the inShot App. (I’ll link in show notes).

2- Keep it Simple

I try to keep my plans flexible and the story / message I want to convey in my IG reel simple. In the show notes- I am going to link to one of my most recent reels where I document “This is When the Moments Turn to Memories.” I filmed the content for this reel yesterday when my son came home from daycare remembering that I promised him a trip to go see the Blue Tractors at the farm after school. He remembered all day long that he wanted to go and when he got home it was the first thing he asked to do. He loves tractors right now. It’s a newer phase for him but it is something I have wanted to document and know that I need to remember how excited he gets about them for as long as I possibly can. My plan became to document our trip to the farm and hopefully find some tractors. I filmed multiple short clips as we experienced the after school adventure. I let the action unfold and knew later I would be able to piece together the story of the memories I wanted to capture.

Another super awesome time saving hack I just learned is that you can now turn your IG stories highlights into Reels. It’s actually super easy and I just tested it out and shared a reel of a highlight I created on my IG feed today. The best news about this is if you often use IG stories to document your day-to-day life and have a particular theme or story you want to tell from those stories, you can go into your IG. Create a highlight. Your IG archives all of your past stories to choose from. Curating a highlight helps make those stories last longer than the 24 hours that they are live on your IG stories feed. From the highlight you can click the 3 dots at the bottom to “Convert (the highlight) to a Reel.”

When you convert story highlights to a reel you get the benefit of having a highlight bubble in your feed + the reel options create a template with music / timing of clips and you can select which clips to include. It’s simple to adjust the length of each clip, re-arrange clips and delete unwanted clips/clips that don’t translate well into a reel format.

Remember 1 story 1 reel – try not to convey too many messages in your reel. One goal/story is best. And Shorter reels 15-30s perform often better than 90s ones. 

3- Match the Mood

Use music to help enhance your video. This means if you have a sentimental story you’re looking to tell, use an instrumental song or a song with words that match the message you’re trying to tell. If you want to do a peppy and happy reel – keep your clips under 5s each and try to time the transitions with the changes of beat or sections of the song. As you get more practice creating reels you can also start keeping an eye on the movements and different angles of shots you’re putting together to create your story. I try to pick clips that transition well into one another. For example - In the This is when A Moment turns to Memories Reel - I introduce my daughter eating a loaf of bread and hopping onto the hood of a broken down tractor. The next clip is my son throwing dirt into the back of the broken down tractor. These 2 clips accomplish 3 goals. 1- it shows my daughter and her amazing love for fresh bread at the far 2- it shows my son and his fascination with dirt and tractors and 3- it introduces both/transitions seamlessly between the two scenes within the reel. 

Lastly, another way to “match the mood” in your reel is through text. Time the text to transition with the clips by adjusting the text length in your reel. Keep sentences short in character length and duration. Aim for about (2-5s) min / sentence. It helps people read and process the words.  

Inside MMM I cover video tutorials or how to actually make a reel and my secret sauce for creating short films that help turn moments into memories. You can join the waitlist today in the show notes. We’ll be opening the doors this fall and until then – please jump on over to IG and send me a DM to introduce yourself! I love connecting over there and can’t wait to see your first reel!

https://about.instagram.com/blog/announcements/introducing-instagram-reels-announcement