Why your Reels are flopping

Have you ever spent hours and hours planning, filming, and editing the perfect Reel - just to see it completely flop with a bunch of zeros following the important metrics? We have all been there. This result can be so discouraging and give you the feeling of … “what’s the point?” Have you been there? Today, I just want to walk you through a few reasons why your Reels might be flopping, let’s get into it!

Reason #1: You’re Reel might be too long

I will be the first person to say that having a variety of different types of content is an important part of any strategy and that includes having a different variety of Reels types. But here’s the thing - a person is more likely to watch your entire video if it’s shorter. There is a smaller time commitment which generally just means you have more chances of someone watching the video in full. Now, you will hear Instagram gurus say that you should keep your video at 7 seconds or 15 seconds, but at the end of the day there isn’t a specific number that will get you more views - but generally - shorter videos are more likely to be watched all the way through.

Reason #2: You’re not adding text

Adding text is so important when it comes to making your Reels more engaging and accessible.

Having text appear on your screen keeps the user's eyes visually stimulated, which makes the video itself more engaging and entertaining. This also helps hammer down the important things you are saying, like the meat and potatoes of a tip or a call to action. But even beyond making your Reel look good - it’s important to add text and captions to make it accessible.

Hermon and Heroda, founders of @Being__Her, advocate for accessibility and equality said “There are 466 million people in the world that are Deaf or Hard of Hearing, and accessibility in the world — Instagram in particular — is a big problem,”

If you do not add captions or text to your videos, you are excluding 466 million people. 466 million people who now cannot watch your video because it was not made accessible to them. Thankfully, Instagram has made it so easy to auto-generate captions on your Reels, so this small step won’t add a lot of time to your editing process.

Also, just a side note - I would try to avoid placing the text in the areas of the Reel that have buttons, as you don’t want anything to obstruct the view of your text when someone is watching it. Be sure to use the prompted guidelines provided by the Reel editor to avoid those areas.

Beyond the text on the Reel itself, you should also consider adding some text to your cover image. In the past, I was guilty of adding aesthetic photos as my cover image with absolutely no text - which might work for some Reels, but not all. You have to imagine the scenario of someone watching your Reel and clicking your profile to see more of what you have created, this will bring them to the Reel tab on your Instagram profile. And then what? If they are met with a ton of images, they might click through a few, but maybe those weren’t of interest to them, and instead of taking the time to continue through a few more Reels, they just move on. If instead, your covers had Reels, they would know what they were clicking on and potentially follow your account so they can be a part of your community and watch your future Reels too!

Reason #3: Giving up too soon

One thing that most Instagram gurus won’t tell you is that LUCK plays a huge role in a lot of their success. Now, you can’t get lucky if you don’t first have a kick-butt video, right? You’re video has to high-value and high-quality or you will most likely never have your “lucky break” - but the point is - You can do everything right. Apply everything you have learned from me or other social media experts and have 3 views on your latest Reel.

You might start getting frustrated and begin reaching out to people like me asking … why isn’t this working for me.

The answer? Because sometimes … it’s just waiting for your lucky break. It just takes one. One Reel that has a high click-through rate, which just means that a lot of people that see your video actually click it, which then might lead to engagement, which in turn will encourage Instagram to show your Reel to even more users.

This is a mixture of hard work finally paying off and just having some luck with the Instagram algorithm, but the point I am trying to make is to NOT GIVE UP. Because tomorrow might be the day that the Reel you post takes off and if you were to quit, you would have never seen that growth. Every creator you aspire to be started from nothing and if you ask around, most of them were doing it for YEARS before ever seeing any significant growth.

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Now, if you want more help on your Instagram Reels, check out my FREE “the Reels Compass” Email Course, which helps you through developing and creating a high-value and high-quality Reel for your community - you can sign up in the show notes and again, it’s completely free.