Marketing using the latest trends is a part of an effective marketing strategy and the latest trend these days is Social Media. With COVID-19 and lockdown in effect, the number of users for Social Media has heightened to a level more than expected and among various Social Media platforms, the one which has grown exponentially is Instagram.
With 1 billion+ monthly active users, Instagram has become the most popular and favourite social media app for young people and even for brands. The trending feature of Instagram nowadays is, yes the only that you just thought of, Reel.
Surrounding all the conspiracy blames on Chinese apps, Tiktok popularity got diminished and a whole lot of influencers and famous Tiktokers were affected due to this until Instagram rolled out its new feature i.e. Instagram Reels.
Reels have been quickly adapted as the alternative for Tiktok and has been positively used by a large number of users on Social media. Brands and eCommerce businesses that were already on Instagram and were offering shopping has found a great way to reach their audience by utilizing Reels.
So, if you own a Shopify store and an account for the same on Instagram, you should start using Reels right away.
How to do that?
That’s what this article is about. Read to the end to know everything about using Reels to market your Shopify Store on Instagram.
What is Reels?
Though most of us know about Reels, here is a short explanation of Reels to for you before you proceed:
Reels is a new feature of Instagram where you can make/upload short video clips of a maximum of 30 seconds, adding creativity to its visuals and motion with various editing options such as effects, speed, align, etc.
Benefits of using Reels
Reels are a great option to communicate with your customers and appeal to new audiences. But how? Here are a few reasons which make it essential to use Reels for marketing on your Instagram profile:
- Rise in engagement and hence, Visits
Till now, Instagram has always been a favourite among other Social media platforms due to its diverse features such as story, feed, IGTV, and now Reels.
You can edit your short videos with attractive Reels tools like speed, align, effects, audio, and bring out all your creative juices with quick and easy steps. This will help to get more viewing time, and engagement to your Shopify Store’s Instagram profile.
- Users like to see short, interesting videos
It is observed that users interact more with short videos that are interesting than written content or infographics because of which Reels is an exceptional feature on Instagram.
Hence, Reels provides you with opportunities to get liked by your customers in more than one way. After all, if users are going to like your profile and content, it will create a positive impression of your business that will raise your chances of sales on your Shopify website.
Just like feed posts, Reels also has its separate explore page, where if you see one , just by scrolling upwards you can explore similar kinds of Reels. This increases the chances of you getting noticed by the user searching for videos similar to your niche/business.
- Customer Loyalty
Customers like to follow brands and businesses on Social Media from whom they shop usually, or have purchased anytime in the past.
Social media not only connects you with your customers but also it is a place where your existing customers are connected with your potential customers and that’s why you need to be updated on Social media.
The more your followers share your Reels content, the more noticed you get and that raises your possibilities to get new customers and also maintains your existing customers’ loyalty.
There are numerous ways to reach your target audience on Instagram organically and with paid promotions as well.
Reels is a new and rapidly growing feature and making your presence more through this feature gets you caught in the eyes of Instagram algorithm and with this, you reach more people on Instagram.
If you are already using the Instagram Shopping option, then using Reels will surely affect your sales positively. It generates leads to your inbox and comment section which you can handle well with Instagram automation tools.
There are various tools that help you to market and handle your Shopify Instagram account, two of which are Instafeed and Rheobot.
Instafeed:
Do you want to gain Instagram followers from your Shopify website? Yes, that is possible, with Instafeed.
Instafeed allows you to integrate your Instagram feed on your Shopify website where you can customize it and share it with your website visitors.
Rheobot:
You might be thinking of it as a bot but Rheobot is much more than looks to the eye. With Rheobot you can handle both your Instagram comments and Shopify website at the same place.
Rheobot offers chatbot for website & Facebook, response automation on Instagram comments, order management for Shopify stores and much more.
Types of Reels you can use
- Product how-tos
Show your audience how to use your products in different ways. If the user is already looking for a product that you sell then showing them how to use your products is the best way for an indirect sales approach.
Also, you can make Reels to show how your products can be used after in other ways if it becomes obsolete for the way it was originally used. This makes a customer feel connected to your Shopify business and entices them to buy from you.
The best example for this would be fashion brands that show how to style products for different occasions.
- Inspire with ideas
Make videos that are relevant to your business and industry. Your audience might get bored when you post the same kind of content and to solve this issue, one of the ways to show your audience how they can improve their daily life with the products pertaining to your business and industry.
- Behind-the-scenes
Users like to know what is going on behind a business that they see on screen. Letting them take a quick sneak peek with a 10-15 second clip can make them feel connected to your business and build brand awareness.
- Teasers
Are you planning to give a festive discount or launch a sale on your Shopify website? Or are you going to launch some new product?
Then making short video clips on Reels to let people know about the date of sale/product launch and giving them a quick idea about it would surely serve your initial sales post-launch.
- Show how it solves problem
Mini humorous videos on how your product solves the problem prevailing for your customers can help you build brand identity and awareness among your audience.
A good example of this would be showing how your smartwatch product can help to make your customer’s life better and fast with its smart features.
- User-generated content
Promoting user-generated content is one of the social media content marketing strategies. It helps build trust among Instagram users as they will trust the content more if it is generated by people among themselves and whom they know.
You can also consider influencer marketing in this as influencers are people that users like, follow and get inspired by. Influencers help you to reach more related audience and those who are looking for your product if you choose influencers to collaborate with wisely.
How to create Reels – Get Started
- For creating Reels, go to your Instagram camera and choose “Reels” from “Live”, “Story” and “Reels”.
OR
- Go to your profile and click on the “+” button seen on the left side of your username. Here, you will see various content options such as Feed, Story, IGTV, from where you can choose Reels and proceed with making videos.
Now, how to make good reels? For this purpose, reels have some really good editing tools. Let’s see what they are and how they work!
- Clips
In Reels, you can make more than one video clips and they will be saved which you can use anytime you open Reels. You can merge more than one Reels or use any one of your choices from the saved ones.
- Audio
As you add music to your Instagram Stories, in a similar way, you can add music to your Reels video from the Instagram music library.
But there is more than that with Reels. With Reels you can embed your own audio (not more than 15 seconds) into your video clip which other people will also be able to use if you have used that audio from a public account.
- Speed
We all have seen Tik Tok videos with different speeds in frames, good thing is, you can do the same with Reels. Adjust your speed according to your choice to make the video in slow motion or super-fast motion and the speed will be applied to your video.
- Effects
Under effects tool, you will see a lot of options similar to given in Snapchat, Tiktok, and Instagram Story. These are AR generated effects which can customise your surroundings, even your body features. Use this tool, to make an attractive and eye-catching Reels video.
- Timer
Reels provides you the option to pre-set time for your video recording with Timer. This helps you to make a video of accurate timing so that you don’t need to worry to pause recording.
- Align
You must have seen a video where people change outfits with a snap. How does that happen? That’s where the Align tool comes into the picture.
With Align, you can make smooth transitions between various Reels video clips by aligning objects from previous video clips.
Conclusion
It is vital to keep yourself updated if your business has social media presence, and with 500 million+ daily active users on Instagram, it becomes an essential social media platform to use for the growth for your Shopify business.
With such a quick adaption of Reels among Instagram users, and it gaining popularity, making Reels videos would surely get your Shopify business favour from the Instagram algorithm. So, start making creative, unique videos relating to your brand and grow your sales.
