Turn Reel Views to Followers: The Instagram Funnel Secret
An important step to mastering the Instagram funnel is knowing how to turn reel views into followers. Instagram Reels (and Facebook Reels) are a great way to reach a bigger audience. They are the most recent focus of the Instagram algorithm in helping accounts reach new accounts and convert them into followers. The most difficult part of Instagram Reels, however, is understanding how to convert reel views to followers.
What are Instagram Reels?
Instagram Reels are vertical videos up to 90 seconds long. They appear on Instagram’s infinite-scroll feed, constantly adapting to a user’s activity and preferences to keep them hooked.
Reel creators are encouraged to stitch clips together, add stickers and polls, use filters, and add text or captions to their creations. Some of the most popular reels follow trends (sharing common music, challenges, and edits) adapted to the user’s unique experience. These creative trends are often taken from TikTok, which has a similar structure to Instagram Reels. The approach taken to these two platforms should be slightly different, so here we’ll focus on how to turn reel views into followers on Instagram.
How to Convert Reel Views to Followers
There are a few different steps to take to ensure your reel views convert to followers on Instagram. These minor tweaks to your posting habits can make a huge difference between your Instagram Reel going viral and disappearing amongst the millions of others on the feed.
1. Post Reels Consistently
With the new Instagram algorithm, consistency is your best friend. The Instagram algorithm will now avoid overwhelming a user with one page’s posts, regardless of how much they post in a day. If you only follow a handful of accounts and one of them posts 3 times a day while the others post once a week, users will still get a healthy mixture of content from each account despite one of the pages having much more content to show.
Posting reels more frequently and consistently has one great benefit — it gives the algorithm more options to choose from when deciding what to show to your followers and non-followers. By posting as frequently as you can handle, you give the algorithm greater flexibility to curate content for viewers that are likely to engage and follow you.
If posting frequently is outside of your capabilities, I’d recommend hiring a social media manager (even if they work part-time). A social media manager will solely focus on your platform presence and be dedicated to the consistency that you need to help you grow. This is one of my main responsibilities with my clients (and I absolutely love it)!
2. Create Unique Content to Capture the Viewers’ Attention
Consistent posting is great, but consistently being unique is even better. The more unique your content is, the greater the chance of peaking your viewers' interests is. This all helps your content stick in the minds of non-followers and can trigger the “hey, this account is familiar” reaction when seeing more of your posts.
Creating unique content can be difficult at times, but even small changes to existing trends can make a huge difference in your view to follower conversion rate. Don’t be afraid to showcase your creativity with reels — most might bomb, but the few that go viral will make your account pop!
3. Add Stickers, Text, and Music to Your Reels
Instagram Reels have some great tools at your disposal to help make your content unique. Oftentimes, just posting a clip from your photo library and adding a short caption isn’t enough to make the Instagram algorithm happy. Adding text, captions, music, and stickers helps make your reel stick out from the rest and gives more data for the algorithm to tag your post with.
4. Write Effective Captions and Hashtags
Yes, pictures are worth a thousand words and videos are worth a million — but it’s still important to deliver your content with the right message (a caption). Your caption gives you a chance to add a mindful note to your creation and speak with your audience more directly.
The majority of viewers that are hooked on the content will take a look at the caption. What’s important for creators to consider is what that caption encourages or sparks. It’s redundant to caption a reel with what was already shown in the reel, so it’s important to focus on elaborating on that. Asking questions, diving deeper, or giving context can help spark the conversation in your comments and build a community.
Using hashtags at the end of your caption, or in a comment, is also very important for the Instagram algorithm to tailor your content to the right user. I won’t dive into too much depth on Instagram hashtags as I’ve already written an extensive guide to using hashtags on Instagram, but being specific rather than hitting popular tags should be your focus.
5. Implement a Hook for Viewers to Want More Content
Posting a reel and hoping it’s liked by your viewers isn’t enough to convert them into fans. The difference between a follower and a non-follower is followers want more content from you specifically rather than the algorithm.
Creating a hook involves identifying your unique selling proposition (or USP). Your unique selling proposition is what makes your page stand out from the others and helps your content be quickly linkable to your brand. Embracing your unique selling proposition in your reels will let viewers know that you’re the only place they can get content like what they just watched.
A great strategy to encourage viewers to follow your page is breaking up your reels into parts. Posting a short clip with an eye-catching subject and teasing viewers with a potential part two can have viewers following to stay up to date. A much longer-term version of this is creating a series on your page that will encourage followers to stay in the loop.
6. Step Down From the Stage and Talk to Your Viewers
It’s great to post a reel on Instagram and see the likes, comments, and views flowing in. What many content creators fail to do, however, is build a community they are a part of around what they create.
Responding to comments is one of the most important habits you need to build to turn your reel viewers into followers. This community you build and engage in can be a part of your unique selling proposition. By creating a community that you are engaging in, viewers will want to feel like a part of you and your page and follow you to stay in the loop.
Final Thoughts
The most important, out of all of these points, is consistency. You’ll never turn viewers into followers if you aren’t present in the first place. Posting consistently and experimenting with these tips can help you both turn reel viewers into followers, and understand the deeper marketing concepts that you may not have noticed about your brand.
If you’ve read this far (all 1,178 words) be sure to follow me for more content. If you have any questions, feel free to also drop a response and I will share my knowledge and maybe even write an extensive answer in the form of a post.