12 Creative Instagram Reels Ideas to Grow Your Brand

As a brand owner, the need to get creative with your products can become overwhelming, especially when you run out of creative Instagram reels ideas. 

Enter Instagram Reels marketing ✨

Instagram Reels are short videos on Instagram where you can express your creativity and bring your brand to the limelight. With an average of 500 million users spending hours on Instagram daily, Instagram Reels are the perfect way to go beyond the usual photo posting to share fascinating videos with your audience. 

In this article, we’ll look at creative Instagram reels ideas for you to explore and build your dream brand.

Let’s get into it!

1. Create how-to videos

Creating tutorials and how-to videos is a fantastic way to use Instagram Reels marketing for your brand. After making detailed videos explaining your brand’s product, these relevant tutorials and guides can get your followers further interested in your brand with the possibility of bringing them to your checkout. How-to videos can help build your audience and drive engagement. Well-tailored content gives your brand an aspect of reliability and trust — values customers looking to connect with a brand want.

This strategy also works with influencer marketing. When you collaborate with influencers to educate your audience, you project honesty and also spread your brand’s information through influencers. 

For example, Athleta shows its potential customers how to style the Brooklyn Ankle Pants in different ways. 

They managed to do all of the above in about twelve seconds with quick camera cuts and nice edits to keep their viewers glued.

See more

2. Make creative behind-the-scene videos

To improve your Instagram Reels marketing strategy, you need something captivating to attract your potential customers. That’s where behind-the-scenes videos should come in. 

They give insights and humanise your brand. Your target audience can see the quirks and traits that make up your brand. 

The ideas are limitless. So use seamless transitions to show the processes your brand undergoes. Let’s look at how luxury purse brand Anima Iris uses behind-the-scenes videos for their Instagram Reels to give followers a peek at their product.

See more

Think of Reel content that lets your audience feel connected with you. That could be how you create your content or package your products. 

3. Leverage user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) comes in different formats like short-form videos and pictures. It allows customers to generate new interests and discover your products through social proof. 

Some ways to collate UGC for Instagram Reels marketing are; 

• Creating brand hashtag contests
• Posting with a cause
• Following trend-worthy events
• Resharing customer reviews and testimonials or
• Collaborating with content creators

Leveraging UGC for Instagram Reels can help boost audience engagement and facilitate audience conversion. 

Thus, incorporating UGC in your marketing funnel makes your content relevant and social media strategy effective. 

Jot shares a customer review video via Instagram Reels to advertise its brand.

See more

You can run a successful UGC campaign via Reels by engaging with customers that leave a comment on your videos or reshares them on their stories. These engagements create genuine connections that increase loyalty. 

4. Repurpose your old content

Knowing how to alter your content is a game-changer in social media strategy — especially when you love to get creative with pictures and videos.

However, you must customise these previous clips to align with your Instagram audience and update the content before posting your content. 

Some things you can do are:

• Pull great lines from videos or interviews you’ve previously done. 
• Compile UGC you’ve previously shared on your feed and place it in a new format using creative video techniques. 
• Share existing Reels to Instagram Stories and use hashtags to get featured on Instagram Explore.

You can also repurpose a great piece of content on multiple platforms, whether a valuable blog post or video clip, into Instagram Reels.

See more

Check out this example from Scout Aviation, which repurposed its FAQ section into a Reel. This is a good way to capture the attention of people who are frequent Instagram users. Those who don’t love reading long posts can turn to your Instagram Reel instead. 

5. Get inspired by trends

Using trending IG Reels puts your brand in the limelight. Here you have the opportunity to go viral, which can boost your audience dramatically. 

Trends can vary by songs, effects, or even filters. So you must pay attention to what is popular in your brand niche and create your content when it’s still in trend. 

You can search for trends with hashtags and audio clips or find them on your Instagram Explore pages. 

Another way to hop on trends is to create Instagram Reels that are aligned with the seasons or important events. Think of videos with the hashtags like #summer,  #mothersday or #halloween, which typically go viral.

See more

Check out the example above from Adobe, which posted this Instagram Reel on National Pizza Day. Just make sure you post your videos on the dates these special events actually happen. If you post them even just a day later, people might no longer be interested in your material since it may be deemed no longer relevant.

6. Create listicles

Like a bucket list, you can spice up your marketing campaigns with listicles.

Listicles have a tendency to go viral when you delight customers with fun, entertaining content or share easy-to-digest valuable content. 

You can create a listicle Reel by clipping together pictures or short-form content of your brand products and services. It keeps your audience interested in your next Reel post. 

See how travel blogger, Kirsten, uses listicles to inspire her followers below:

See more

Once you have an exciting idea for your post, what’s the next step?

Begin with outlining your listicle points. After, note the relevant content based on your audience engagement and what’s ranking well on search engines. You can then create 15-second clips to demonstrate your list extensively. 

Get creative and send recurring emails for updates to your loyal customers. This way, you can inform them whenever you update your list or create content they may be interested in. 

7. Tell your story

Aside from using user-generated content, sharing stories keeps your brand in the minds of your followers. To cut through mediocre content, you need good and consistent visual Instagram stories. 

Remember that you want to grab your audience’s attention. So get creative with how you share your ideas and tell your brand story. Try showcasing different products and compellingly telling a backstory or highlighting your customers saying how your brand solved their problems. 

Using Instagram Reels, visualise the importance of some of the previous things you’ve done or challenges you’ve faced. Then proceed to use these videos as regular feed posts for higher engagements.

For example, the influencer and brand owner, Negin Mirsalehi, displayed a Reel that details her brand and how she came about it. 

See more

Create your brand story Reels by experimenting with video editors that allow you to cut and join different clips for a seamless video. You can also overlay music and add link buttons for users who like your Instagram Reels to engage through likes, comments, and shares.

8. Look at your comments and DMs for ideas

When you make intriguing Instagram Reels, you’d expect your audience to leave likes and comments.

But the truth is, you must encourage your followers to get the engagement you want. Otherwise, you’d leave them to only liking your feed post and scrolling onto others. 

To get your followers to comment, be direct. Include call-to-actions in your IG Reels caption and encourage your followers to leave their reactions. Eventually, you can use these commentaries as a guide to creating your next Reel post to engage your audience continuously. 

Furthermore, ask your loyal customers for reviews regarding your brand. The feedback and opinions are a great way to guide your product development and where you need to improve. 

The odds of your target audience having objections are very high. Perhaps, they aren’t satisfied with the benefits or have pending questions. You may be clueless about this until you create engaging ways to make them react. That’s why you need to prompt your followers to talk about their objections or positive news about your brand that will guide you in finding solutions. 

9. Highlight your company or employees

You must go beyond posting similar-style content to spice up your brand’s social media posts. You can use Instagram Reels marketing to showcase your brand’s employees and their respective roles. That acknowledges their efforts and motivates them for better performance. 

Instagram Reels can build your brand’s affinity and show — not just tell — your audience what your brand is about. 

Instagram Reels provide a simple and effective way to humanize your brand and express your brand personality in a fun way. 

An excellent Reel content idea is using pictures of your employees from your company’s events like workshops and conferences. 

See more

The video above shows how Sassywoof introduced its staff with humourous content.

By making this Reel content, you can successfully craft an authentic tone of voice that resonates with your audience. Your audience begins to see that there are people they can rely on behind your brand, not just chatbots.

10. Showcase your products

There are many brands out there with similar products as yours. With Instagram Reels, you can promote your product videos, highlight services, special offers, and even your dishes, if you’re using Instagram for restaurant marketing. 

Instagram Reels are a fun way to show off what makes your product stand out and drive authentic engagement. 

See how Sephora shows off their new lip gloss products below:

See more

Showcasing your products increases audience engagement and allows them to be more inclined to purchase from you instead of your competitors. 

11. Create sneak peek videos

Showing sneak peek videos or teasers leave your audience curious and captivated. 

Do you have a new upcoming project? Give your followers sneak peek videos on Instagram Reels to get them excited about what’s coming. 

The sneak peek video can be of your product or service. For better results and engagements, make these Instagram Reels with influencers. With their huge following, you’re assured that they’d drive sales by sharing Instagram stories and Reels that highlight your product. 

Here’s another Reel example from Sephora. The brand uses Instagram Reels to introduce new products and give sneak peeks.

See more

Your brand can also create sneak-peek Instagram Reels for giveaways. This way, you’d get your target audience to interact with your brand in hopes of winning. 

That will help generate hype before your release and give your target audience a reason to follow you. 

12. Make “a day in the life” videos

Film snippets of your daily lifestyle when it comes to your brand. You can show your followers insights into what it looks like to run your brand daily. 

Even better, you can narrate your video clips with a voiceover feature on IG Reels and explain the different parts of the vlog. 

See more

This video shows how “world bee day” was celebrated by brand owner Negin Mirsalehi. It’s an appealing method to use for events your audience might not get to see or experience. 

Creating something new regularly keeps you on your creative toes. It allows you to introduce new concepts and challenges for yourself and also uniquely deliver your message to your audience. 

Takeaways

It’s up to you to choose the content you want to create. But eventually, how you leverage it matters. Instagram Reels marketing makes it easy to create content and saves you from strenuous activities — but you must post appropriate content to drive engagement. 

Begin by educating people about your brand. Answer questions your audience is likely to ask and provide the answers immediately. Create a bond by humanising your brand. It creates a sense of trust between you and your followers and makes room for engaging conversations.

Post your content regularly and hop on trends as much as you can. That allows you to become viral and promotes your brand on the Instagram explore pages. 

Give details of events and prompt your followers to engage you with calls to action. 

All of these might be time-consuming, but eventually, you get to pitch your brand to a broader audience and keep it in the loop. 

Enjoyed this post? You might also like

• TikTok Explained: A Complete Beginner’s Guide
• The Ultimate Guide to Instagram Reels
• Top 40 Social Media Tools for Agencies, SMBs, Creators and Brands