Glossary
What is a reel? And why reels reach strangers
A short vertical video on Instagram that gets shown to people who do not follow you yet.
A reel is a short vertical video, usually somewhere between fifteen and ninety seconds, and the thing that makes it different from a normal post is who sees it. Reels get pushed into a feed full of strangers, so they are the part of Instagram that can actually bring you new people.
What that changes
You are writing for somebody who has never heard of you and has their thumb ready. The first second has to make a promise, and the rest has to keep it, because the people watching owe you nothing.
Views are not followers
A reel can pull in a hundred thousand views and add eleven followers, and that usually means it entertained people without telling them who you are or why they would want more. Why your reels get views but no followers goes through the fix.
How to pick what to make
Look at which reels beat the account's own normal rather than which ones are biggest, which is what an outlier score is for, and rebuild the idea in your own words.