Welcome to today’s Thursday short. I’m so glad that you’re here!!! Today I wanna talk a little bit about, views on (Instagram) Reels and deciding if that means that they’re successful or not.

“I’m so excited because we have a reel that’s blowing up and I wanna know what we did differently that’s making it get so many views.”

So here’s how this question came up. I was at the Wedding Pro CEO Summit, and one of my mastermind students came up to me and said, “I’m so excited because we have a reel that’s blowing up and I wanna know what we did differently that’s making it get so many views.”

And it was really funny because I’ve actually encouraged this particular student for almost a year to start making Reels. And she kept saying she was going to, she didn’t, and finally she did, and immediately she is starting to see the power of it!!

So we start looking at the Reel and really, I think what it came down to for this one is the audio, there was great audio on it. It was a trending audio. And of course that meant that her views were blowing up, which was super exciting and a lot of fun, right?

I think seeing a Reel get lots of views is fun and it’s encouraging, but what you really want to look at to measure the success of a Reel is your Instagram Insights.

So when you’re in your Reels, tab on your Instagram, you can open up one of your Reels and hit the three little buttons on the bottom right. And it’ll let you see the insights. It’ll say, “view insights” and that’s your (IG) insights just for that Reel.

So you’re gonna wanna open that up and you’re gonna wanna look at two measurements. One is gonna be how many “saves” and the other is gonna be, how many “shares” Now, why is this important?

It’s important because as wedding industry pros, yes, it’s fun and exciting when we have lots and lots of views on our Reels. However, what we’re really trying to do is to do business through this short form video platform, right? So we want to get more engagement than just views.

“What we’re really trying to do is to do business through this short form video platform, right? So we want to get more engagement than just views.”

So likes are also great, but that could just mean that somebody liked the Reel itself, like how it was done or the audio used or something like that, where we really get into high level engagement is if someone shares your Reel or they save it. If somebody takes the time to share your Reel, that’s about the highest level of engagement that you can expect.

And Reels that are typically shared are gonna be Reels that are either, educational, so they might share it with a friend through a DM or they are engaged and they want to share it on their story.

That could be a great one! Or other wedding pros find the information to be really, really helpful, and they share it on their platform so that they can educate their couples through your Reel, and that’s huge, right? So you really wanna make content that’s shareable and shareable content is typically educational.

The other one is “saves”. This is also where your educational content is gonna come in really, really heavy.

A lot of times you’re gonna have couples that are, either just starting the planning process, or maybe they’re not even engaged yet, but they’re so close and so they’re really starting to do their research and they’re making Pinterest boards, but they’re also saving content on Instagram.

“I’ve actually been shocked to see how many of our couples have boards on Instagram now of content that they’ve saved.”

I’ve actually been shocked in the last, I don’t know, 18 months to see how many of our couples have boards on Instagram now of content that they’ve saved. So it’s really important that you make content that they’re gonna wanna save and that they’re gonna be able to use for future.

This is gonna be educational content, like, “flowers that are in bloom in your wedding season”, or “how to create your wedding budget”, or “how many guests will show up if you invite 150”, right? These are, things that people are gonna wanna save because it’s content that will be helpful when they get to that stage of their planning.

“If somebody’s not quite at the stage of planning where they’re ready to hire their DJ, yet, it’s a great piece of content that they can save and refer back to.”

If you’re a DJ, you know, being able to make content that helps them to know what songs to pick or how to pack the dance floor or what questions ask their DJ is a really great Reel to make. But if somebody’s not quite at the stage of planning where they’re ready to hire their DJ, yet, it’s a great piece of content that they can save and refer back to.

Making a Call to Action

So when you’re making your call to action on your Reels, I also really want you to think about what that call to action is gonna be. If you want them to just simply double tap it because you’re kind of making something entertaining and you just want them to like it and, you know, lowest level of engagement. That’s great. Then just tell them to double tap it.

But if you’re creating a piece of educational content that they can either share or save and come back to you later, tell them to do that. Remind them that that’s an option.

“If it’s a piece of content that you think is shareable, that you want vendors to share, you want other engaged couples to share, tell them, “If this was helpful to you, share it on your story, hit the little airplane button below and share it to your story.””

If it’s a piece of savable content, something that’s more evergreen that you’re gonna want them to be able to come back to remind them that they can save this content for later. Right? So it’d say, “Hit the ribbon button below to save this, so when you’re ready to start this stage of your planning, you’ll have it handy.” Right?

And that is how you get the highest level of engagement. So when you view those insights, you can see, Are people saving your post? Are they sharing your post?

Are people saving your post? Are they sharing your post?

Because, views are super fun, but they are not helping you to do more business. Whereas shares and saves are a really high level of engagement. And it’s a great way to determine the success of your Reel based on how many people have shared it and how many people have saved it.

It’s funny, you’ll actually be quite surprised when you start looking at these insights, because sometimes my Reels that look like they’re the worst from the outside. Like, they might, you know, have a really low level of views have the most saves, which I always think is so interesting to me or they’ll have the most shares. Right? So, super interesting.

So really, really pay attention to that. And sometimes you’ll have a, Reel that goes completely viral. You’ve got like a hundred thousand views on it and it’s got, you know, two shares or, or two saves. I always just find that really interesting.

“Views are super fun, but views are simply vanity!”

So go look at your insights and remember, views are super fun, but views are simply vanity!

Just so that I can give you a call to action, so you remember that you can do this. If this podcast was helpful to you, if this little short episode was helpful to you, I’d love for you to go share it on your story. Or share it with someone else, so that they can get the same great content and understand how to determine the success of their Reels!

Thanks for being here every single week. And I will see you next time!

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