When you scroll on Instagram, you always wonder how this Instagram reel gets thousands of likes, shares, and saves. How can you get the same response on your reels and go viral on Instagram? That's exactly what we are going to discuss in this blog post. We will uncover by step-by-step process to create a Viral Instagram reel that will break all records.
This tutorial will help anyone with any niche on Instagram because we will reveal some secret growth hacks that all famous Instagram profiles follow to get more likes, shares, and saves. To start with, the steps we require you to be ready with the following requirements:
- Your Instagram Micro Niche
- Well-researched keywords
- Trending topics in your niche
Micro Niche
Well-Researched Keywords
A micro niche will help you in this step of finding well-researched keywords. A shortcut is to use AI tools to generate keywords by giving it your reel's topics. Such keywords may or may not work. However, another effective method is to rely on tools like Google Trends, Google Keyword Planner, Keywordtool.io, and Semrush. These tools give you real data that people are searching for on the internet.
You need to find out all relevant keywords for your niche and keep the list with you. This list will be used while writing a description for your Instagram reel. Including searchable keywords helps Instagram to find the right audience for your reel and also allows people to quickly find your reels in Instagram search.
Follow these steps to create a list of keywords:
- Go to any keyword research tool and search for your primary keyword. For e.g., bakery
- Sort the results from High to Low volume search and export those keywords
- Now open Instagram and search those keywords, then check the suggested keywords
- Note all of the suggested keywords by Instagram.
- Repeat the process until you have at least 30 keywords in your list
Trending Topics
Consistent posting is necessary, but it's not effective if the content you are posting is not what people are looking for right now. A better way to work smartly and create content only for trending topics. You can use a tool like Google Trends to find out which topics are breaking out. Also, you can find the recently searched top in keyword research tools like Semrush, Keywoordtool.io, Ahref by reducing the time frame to last week or past few days.
Steps to Make Your Instagram Reel Viral
Now you have all three: a niche, a set of keywords, and trending topics to create a viral reel. It's time to understand how to structure your reel so it gets higher engagement. This involves human psychology, a creative approach, and a marketing strategy that allows you to play with the Instagram algorithm. Let's understand all of them in depth
1. Hit with Hooks
When a person scrolls through Instagram, they see hundreds of posts in a minute, but only engage with the one that hooks them. A hook is nothing but an attention-grabbing visual that is displayed as a thumbnail of your Reel. It provokes a person to tap on your reel to watch it or hold the scrolling to watch for a longer duration.
Type of Instagram Hooks
Instagram Reels has two types of hooks - Image(static) and Video(dynamic). You can provide both or either one of them to increase the click-through rate of your Reel. The idea is simple: the more taps/holds you get, the more views on your Reel.
Static Hooks
Static hooks are usually the thumbnail of your Instagram Reel. It's a static image that appears until someone taps on the Reel. Thumbnails are not helpful in the Reels scrolling feed as they will just for a few microseconds. But, in Instagram search feed and Suggestions, thumbnails are the winners to increase the CTR of your Reel.
Dynamic Hooks
Instagram recently added a small feature to increase engagement with Reels. When you see any Reel in suggestions or in the search feed, it will automatically play, starting 3-5 seconds of the Reel like a short trailer to encourage users to tap on it. This means the starting frames of your Reels act as a hook. You can try testing different eye-catching clips at the start of your Reel to check which one gives you more views.
Bonus Tip: You can add any hooks to your reel, whether or not they're relevant to the content. The only goal is to make users tap on your Reels
2. Steal Popularity
This method is similar to using attractive hooks, but using faces or visuals that are already popular. For example, you can put 3 seconds of Tom Cruise's famous stunt scene at the start of the Reel. Almost everyone has seen Tom Cruise, and they will get curious to watch it.
Before using this method, make sure your clip is relevant to the content to some extent. Otherwise, people will start losing trust in your account in lthe ong term. A safe approach is to present the starting clip as an example of your content.
For example, you post a gym workout reel, then you can start your Reel with Silvester Stallone's face saying "if you want to build a chest like Silvester Stelon, then do this chest workout". This way you safely steal the popularity of Silvester Stelon while keeping the trust by providing valuable workout tips.
Similarly, here are some other ideas to steal popularity safely:
- Use a Famous Dialogue
- Choose a trending Meme
- Display hot news
- A trending song clip
- A famous influencer or creator face
3. Talk with Captions
Instagram, by default, muted all Reels in users' feeds for a better user experience. A person has to tap on Reel to unmute it. This means even if you are sharing the most valuable information, if they don't hear, they don't react. That's why talk with captions. Captions are textual dialogues synced with your audio. It is usually displayed as a text overlay on your Reel. It allows you to communicate with the viewers even when they are watching a muted Reel.
There are plenty of apps on the Play Store, free as well as paid, to generate captions with your audio easily. It will automatically sync with your script so you don't have to edit it later. Some of the free apps that you can try are as follows:
CapCut Captions: For Talking Videos AutoCap Zeemo: AI video maker & Caption Blink: Captions Teleprompter Canva Captiono: AI Subtitles
If your Reel doesn't have audio, then you can use text-to-speech AI tools like Elevenlabs, PlayHT studio, Google AI Studio to generate a real voice with your script and and then generate text overlay captions with that audio.
4. No Audio No Views
Instagram mutes the Reels when they appear in the user's post feed, but when someone is in the Reel section, audios play automatically. This is your chance to hold someone from skipping your Reel. So if you have no audio, you will get negligible or no views at all.
Just like discussed previously, you can leverage AI tools to generate voices, or even if you don't need voices, you can use trending music in your Reel. Usually, people hold on to a reel if you say something interesting at the start or if they listen to any famous song clips.
Some cool ideas to grab users' attention and get more views are as follows:
- Put up a question that builds curiosity
- Say something like "99% people are going to skip this reel…"
- Say it like "Hold on if you are…"
- Say something like "I just need 15 seconds to…"
- Use negative words: "Don't skip or you will lose it…"
5. The 3-Second Rule
The 3-second rule states that an average human's mind is distracted every 3 seconds. Every 3 seconds, a new thought comes into their mind, and it will take them to dreamland. So, how is it helpful in making your Reel viral?
We are going to use this human's habit to hold them for longer on our Reels. While creating your reels, make sure they change every 3 seconds. You can add a transition, or any text pop-up, or a new clip, or maybe a new audio.
If your reel is ideal for more than 3 seconds, they are going to skip it. No matter how valuable your information is, they will not watch it. A good way is to break your topics into 3-second frames, so for a 15-second reel, you can explain 5 points, 3 seconds each.
6. Be your own promoter
Just like paid ads, you can also promote one of your reels in another one. This is also called interlinking. On YouTube, you must have seen cards at the end of the video that will take you to another video, but on Instagram, you can do so with the help of stickers.
Instagram has a link sticker that you can add external links to your stories, posts, and reels. You can utilize this feature to interlink one reel within another reel, so they can watch not just one but 2 or more reels
Similarly, you can promote your reel in your Instagram stories, highlights, broadcast channels, Instagram groups, or even external channels like YouTube, WhatsApp, Reddit, Twitter, etc. The goal is to get more taps on your reel.
7. Build a community
Don't just run for likes and views, build your Instagram community. An Instagram community is a group of people who trust you, like your content, as well as YOU as a person or brand. Having a thriving community has the following benefits:
- Long-term growth with persistent followers and engagement.
- Higher CTR because of mutual trust
- High rate of interaction due to loyal fan following
- Free promotion through free shares
- Easy to grow multiple accounts
8. Make Everything Entertaining
Believe it or not, people comes on Instagram for entertainment. If your reel is not entertaining, they will loose interest in your account soon. Its better to transform your content in a way that it feels entertaining.
Entertainment not just means comedy videos, it covers all kind of emotions, like sadness, peace, motivation, anger, jealousy, love, loneliness, achievements. Your Instagram reel should trigger any of these emotions when they watch it. Even if you are posting educational videos, make them entertaining by a good narration, use of memes, or interesting script.
9. Act Human Not a Brand
Instagram is a social media made for people first and business later. People scroll through Reels to see other beautiful people not some logos, advertisments etc. Its always good idea to give a face to your brand, this show you are authentic. It works the same way you remember a celebrity face but not the movies name they have done.
Another benefit of increasing your face value is that you become independent of any platform. You will go viral no matter in which platform you are using to post content.