#312 How to Master Instagram Reels for Your Jewelry Biz Show notes

10:06AM Aug 22, 2021

Speakers:

Tracy Matthews

Keywords:

reels

instagram

people

jewelry

trending

fun

entertaining

podcast

business

check

content

tracy matthews

dancing

audience

thrive

video

super

piece

ideas

outfit

If you've capture a trend that takes off, you might end up on Instagram's version of an FYP page or a For You page, which is that reels icon. Plus, it's another way for people to discover you. So it's a way to grow your audience from people who might not know who you are.

Welcome to the Thrive by Design. The podcast for ambitious independent jewelry brands, looking to profit from their products, get ready to make more and sell more doing what you love, without spending every single waking minute doing it. Hey, and if you're a creative fashion or product based business, I want to welcome you to the show. I'll be dropping big tips on launching, growing and scaling your business. So you can spend more of your precious time using your creativity to make money. You ready? All right, let's do this.

Welcome to the Thrive by Design podcast, Episode 312. Today, I'm going to be talking about how to master Instagram reels for your jewelry business to get more sales. I'm Tracy Matthews on the Chief Visionary Officer of Flourish and Thrive Academy and the host of the thrive by design podcast. And I'm excited to be here today to talk about something that I've been playing around with for the last couple of months and actually having a blast.

So a little backstory, I was super annoyed when my marketing manager a while back told me I had to do more reels, because to me last year, I was trying to start doing Tiktoks and do all these things. And I'm like, I don't want to like feel stupid, like dancing on camera and stuff like that. And I promise you there is no dancing required unless you want to and so I kind of blew it off and Instagram did a rollout earlier this year. And they basically leaked some information about their algorithm, saying that they were favoring reels over every other type of content, even live video and Instagram TV is not getting the same kind of traction as it used to. So what we know is that all video content in general is going to crush it over everything else that we're doing.

But more than that, it's important to keep this stuff top of mind because what we want to do is to be able to get our content out in the feed and Instagram reels is one of the best ways to do it. Now if you are overwhelmed by reels, you can think of creating reels just like you create any other content for social and I'm gonna talk a little bit like that momentarily, because I had to personally get over the hurdle myself to start doing more reels and I love for you to give me some feedback on the reels that I'm doing. Over at flourish_thrive on Instagram, we will be on Tiktok again, at some point soon. We just haven't gotten there yet. So we have a plan to roll out Tiktok in the fall.

So the good part about it is that you can make these rules once or a Tiktok once and repost it on the platforms or create the same video content and then re upload the video without the the watermark or stamp from Tiktok or Instagram to get some exposure on stuff. So there's a lot of really fun things that you can do and I'm going to talk about that right now. But before I do, actually, I lied. I'm not going to talk about it right now before I talk about that I'm going to share with you something exciting. My book, The Desire Brand Effect is going on pre order. Pretty soon we have have an official release date of November 10. And I would love for you to be part of that preorder extravaganza.

We are working on some amazing bonuses to give anyone who pre orders the book and we're going to be releasing that pre order promotion soon and you'll have an opportunity to buy it at a deeply discounted price like seriously deep, deeply discounted price. And you'll get it as soon as the date is released. What I want you to do is to head on over to desiredbrandaeffect.com and get on the waitlist right there. And within the next couple of weeks I will send out some information on how to get the book on pre order. And the special bonuses that we're going to be having the bonuses I'm going to make it completely worth your while. I want to help you right now to really crush the holiday season. And I think one of the ways to start with that is with reels. Plus one of my favorite masterclasses of all time how to stand out in a saturated market with a timeless jewelry brand is on demand right now and you can watch it for free and that masterclass is awesome because I walk you through the five eye opening trade secrets that your competitors don't want you to know or they might not even know themselves that are going to help you stand out and kind of crush the competition and if that's not enough, I want to invite you to head on over to https://www.flourishthriveacademy.com/timelessbrand and check out what this amazing masterclass is all about. You're going to really enjoy it.

Alright, well let's talk about reels. So I went on this process of discovery because Jason has two daughters, and they when I first moved in with them I guess you could say they were doing tic tocs all the time, they were doing working doing remote schooling. And they had a lot of free time, and I would see them doing tic tocs. I'm like, Oh my gosh, if I get into this reals and Tiktok thing, I'm gonna have to do this dancing thing. And I just felt stupid, like, I love to dance. But I don't know, choreographed dancing on a camera to try and, you know, engage people with my products wasn't my thing.

So I promise there is no dancing required unless you want to dance, which is fine, because you can dance. But there's so many things that you can do to make it easy. So I had this reel that went viral, or viral for us, I don't know, we had like, within a day about 500 views, and it got reshare it a lot. There were like over 150 comments, which is really good. For one of our reels and the angle of the reel was like that feeling you get when dot dot dot, your husband finally acknowledges that your jewelry business is no longer a silly hobby. So once that kind of went viral while I was on vacation, I was kind of like, oh, there's something to this real. Like it's getting out there. It's getting a lot more views than our regular content. Because I don't know, I think business accounts are having a harder time getting a greater reach on Instagram than it used to, like we used to get like four or 500, 600, 1000 likes on our means and stuff like that and it seems as though the algorithm has been declining on static posts.

So I wanted to try to figure out how could I get our message out and also entertain my audience? And so when I originally started doing these reels, I started doing this comparison, I'm like, why did this really short reel, actually completely take off, whereas this longer one that I spent like hours making, which was a huge downside that I really thought through the whole thing didn't got like 50 likes. So I started looking through this, and I started talking to some people about it. And I started figuring out what was working, I'm going to share with you some of those strategies today. I also have some additional resources, we I wrote a blog post on 16 reels ideas that you can use, so that you can use it as a reference list to kind of go back and cycle through when you're creating your content. It's the same thing that you would use for static posts many of these things, so want you to really think of reels as a substitution for what you're doing in a static post.

So if you're rotating content through that KLT or Know-Like-Trust filter, and then you're also incorporating some loyalty or stuff like that, you can do the same thing with your reels. It's just about how you position it and so let's kind of walk through some of these ideas. If you want links to any of the things that I talked about today, you've definitely check out the show notes. There'll be a link in the caption here, wherever you're listening to this podcast, and also over at flourishthriveacademy.com/312, which is this episode. So first and foremost, you want your reels to be entertaining. And what I mean by that is make funny faces, you know, really be animated. Think about like, what kinds of things would make your audience laugh or chuckle or stop the scroll basically, because that's the main thing is you want to stop the scroll with something that is eye catching, and also entertaining.

So what I really encourage you to do is for anyone that you're following, or other product brands that are doing big things with reels and stuff like that, notice what stops your eye in the scroll and think to yourself, like how can I relate this to my business? I don't condone copying ever. But there's so much inspiration that you can get when you follow people with big followings, even if they're people outside of your industry. Like my friend Elise Dharma, who I'm on the podcast a while back, she is Instagram educator, and like she's doing some really fun things with reels. There's other people like the Socialista, Instagram reels experts who teach you how to do reel now, thesocialista.com.au I've been following their Instagram account for a couple months now.

And to me, it's fascinating because they're super cute though these young girls from Australia, who are teaching people how to use rails, they have great rails. They're super young and spunky. And they're dancing all the time. And so I don't necessarily want to copy what they're doing, meaning I'm not going to be dancing and doing all the crazy stuff. But they share with you kind of just some really great ideas on how you can like capture people's attention really quickly. So you want to make sure that you're capturing people's attention and make them entertaining so that they stop and actually watch your reels. Now this other trick that I found out is that everyone has a little button on the bottom of their Instagram feed where you can watch other people's reels, reels that are trending, they're not necessarily accounts that you might even follow and this is the cool part about that.

There's two parts of this. The reels that are trending will show you the trending music or the trending ideas that people are doing and repeating Over and over again, if you capture a trend that takes off, you might end up on Instagrams version of an FYP page or a For You Page, which is that reels icon, plus, it's another way for people to discover you. So it's a way to grow your audience from people who might not know who you are, especially if you're using catchy hooks, or tips or whatever it might be. So use the trends that are really popular on Instagram starting with the musical trends, because this will give you some insights on actually what to even do for it and things that people are like redoing over and over again and when those trends catch on, that's when the algorithm picks it up and we'll put you in that checkout like the Instagram version of an FYP page. This is a great idea to do that.

Now, So Step One is to keep your reels entertaining, so that they stop the scroll. Step Two is to use trends like trending music, so that you show up in people's feeds who are not following you, this is really important. Now the second piece of this is to write a good hook so the hook can be in the video, to get people to stop, it could also be in the caption. This is really, really important. Because what you're trying to do, which I'll mention this, momentarily, is to get people to actually read the caption because that's really where most of the information in educating is going to happen. So when you write a good hook, I'm actually giving you an amazing freebie with this resource. It's 31 Instagram reels hooks to get your reels to go viral for your jewelry company. So I'm just gonna read off a few, there's 31 of them, but you can kind of see how it's work.

So we want to capture someone's attention right away. So the first thing is to call out your avatar. So if you design jewelry for busy moms, calling all busy moms, if you don't have time to change your jewelry with every outfit, check out my new collection x which you can wear every day wear in the shower and never have to change etc. or whatever it might be right? Or attention dog lovers, have you checked out my new canine collection where I feature some of my favorite dog paw prints, I don't know you get it. Attention, Yogi's or yoginis, whatever it might be. Check out my brand new mala bracelets with healing gemstones. You've never seen bracelets like this before. And then you can describe the benefits of the actual product that you're selling.

So think of the hooks. Another one is struggling to and then you want to insert your pain point here. So it might be struggling to find the right piece for date night or struggling to clean your silver jewelry or struggling to layer that outfit or struggling to figure out which jewelry to bring on vacation or how to pack your jewelry on vacation. These are all ways that you can educate and entertain people. The next fact that I wanted to share was you need this to blank insert the outcome, you need this or this piece to complete your date night look. Or you need this piece to heal your heart. Like there's a bunch of different ways. So I want you to think about the context of your jewelry. How are you? What can you offer people or what do people need it for? Think about your avatar and what they're actually wearing your jewelry for. Then I'm going to share one more with you. But there's what as I mentioned, there's 31 total. So check it out, three outfit changing and then insert jewelry piece, you can just show yourself wearing three different necklaces with three different outfits and and explain in the caption about how those outfits are being complimented by the jewelry or like where you can actually shop the piece. But keep it entertaining and fun.

So write a good hook to capture their attention and use that hook in the reel. Now the next piece of this is to get inspired by what other people are doing. Like I mentioned this before, I'm not here to tell you to copy anyone. But if you are a novice on video or you don't feel comfortable on video, scroll that reels page and see how simple it is because there's a lot of excuse me, excuse me for saying this. But a lot of nerdy people doing great things with reels or a lot of people who normally would feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, just doing simple things that you can easily replicate. So when you make sure that you're getting inspired by other people, because this is going to really help you develop better reels and better content. Now you need to have a strong call to action at the end of your reel. So the end of your reel should tell people what to do next.

So it could be to sign up for my email list or it could be I think the best call to action is to read the caption below. For more info on what the reel is about. It could be checked on link in bio or all these things so make sure that you tell them what to do next and you don't just leave people hanging, especially if the reels are specific about something want more date night looks. Click the check the caption below for more ideas and check out our Lincoln bio, for our free download whatever it might be, you want to be thinking strategically about how you're using the reel to actually build your audience, not only on Instagram, but move those people to your email list your own marketing list, because we do know that if you rely on a platform like Instagram to be the place where it houses your audience, over time, you might get in trouble or screwed, I guess that's the best way to put it. If for some reason, they shut down your account. So our goal is always to build our email list or get people onto our website. That's the purpose of doing all this social media anyway, or to get them shopping straight in your Instagram, whatever it might be.

The next step is to keep your reels short. I mentioned this earlier in the intro, I was spending a ton of time doing 60 second reels, you would be surprised how long it takes, because you're kind of like editing things and adding a lot of words and stuff like that. And they take a long time, I was trying to make them all highly produced and all this stuff. And those reels weren't getting a lot of traction, but the 15 second ones were our 10 second ones. With training videos were getting, like tons of shares, and replays and comments and stuff like that. So keep your reel short, like if you're stressed about it, do a 15 second real or less, because you can do last time even. You want it long enough. So that actually shows up. But the more the video loops, the more views it gets. And that shows the algorithm that more people are watching it. So it's a weird kind of like reels hack, the shorter, the shorter the reel, the better, as long as it's a strong engagement and strong content.

The next tip is to use humor to entertain like, think about how you can be funny like, Can you make funny faces? Can you react to the music? Can you say something funny if you're actually going to be using an original audio of yours? Like what can you do? I saw this really funny reel from Gem Gossip and I didn't realize that you could do an audio overlay on Instagram until I saw this. But Danielle, from Gem Gossip had done a an influencer style reel of where she was like voicing over these beauty influencers using Face Cream wearing a ton of rings. And as jewelers we know that that's terrible for your jewelry. So she made this total riff on this like about like, using beauty products and creams and getting it all stuck in your rings and stuff like that it was super hilarious, and that that reel went totally viral. People loved it. So think about how you can use humor to educate and entertain while still teaching your audience a lesson like it was a really great idea.

My next piece of advice to you is don't take yourself too seriously, the more that you can have fun, the better. Case in point one of my students Diane of Doris In The Hamptons, was given a challenge in our Train Your Customers to buy online workshop. She's now a Momentum student and we repurposed this video, it was so funny. She came on and she was telling her story and all of a sudden her neighbor distracted with the window and she started screaming profanity at the neighbor and telling him that she ruined her Tiktok, and she posted it and it was so funny, I could not stop laughing just because that's what real life is like. And this leads me to my next point, it's like, use some humor. But also don't take yourself too seriously. If you mess up, show bloopers because that people like actually want to see that and have fun with it.

Now one of my last tips is to master the transitions and make them fun. So transition are key like they're super easy ways that you can do this, you can use it on the beat with music, you can snap, you can jump up and change your outfit, you can hit your palm on your camera so that like it opens up to a new thing, you can swirl your arms, there's lots of things to do, I'm not going to since this is an audio podcast, I can't show you what the transitions look like. You definitely want to use fun transitions that capture people's eyes and get them to stop the scroll. Because ultimately, what we're trying to do is to get people to stop in their tracks. Take a look at what you're doing, and take the next step with your reel and finally, have fun because at the end of the day, this should be fun. And I've learned to make it fun. I hated doing this. This is like so anxiety producing and written for me. But we are really in the process of like making this fun. And so I want you to have fun.

So here's the thing. I want to challenge you to do a week of reels in the week do three reels, and I want you to tag it Flourish and Thrive Academy in that you can use our #FTA designers rock or you can actually just tag our account at flourish_ thrive because I want to really celebrate you and I would love to repost it or remix your reel so that we can share it on our feed. So please, please do this. It will be a blast and we're going to have a lot of fun with it as well. Well, so thank you so much for listening. Today I'm gonna do a quick recap of this and I want to remind you, we have a content upgrade for this episode that you definitely want to download.

Number one, keep your wheels entertaining.

Number two, use trends also known as or aka trending music.

Number three, write a great hook.

Number four, get inspired by other people.

Number five, have a strong call to action, send them to the caption for more.

Number six, keep them short you want you want these to loop so that people see them.

Number seven, use humor to entertain people.

And number eight, don't take yourself too seriously.

Number nine, master the transitions.

And number 10. Have fun.

All right, this is Tracy Matthews. Wrapping up this episode, I want to remind you that we have some amazing stuff for you. So check out the show notes for more details. I would be honored if you get on the waitlist for my book The Desired Brand Effect. It will be totally worth your while we're going to be doing a like literally a no brainer. Early Bird sales promotion, you want to get in on this because it's your opportunity to get the book for super cheap. Also, if you want some help with your business for holiday, I really want to encourage you to watch my on demand masterclass, How To Stand Out In A Saturated Market with a Timeless Jewelry Brand and then I also want to invite you to download 31 Instagram reels hooks to get your reels to go virals and I just also wrote, there's so much about this, sorry, there's so many things for you to do. That's why I want you to head on over to the show notes. But I also wrote a great blog post for 16 Instagram reels ideas that you can use for yourself.

So I didn't want to go into those directly in here because I have an entire blog post about it over on our blog, but you can definitely check it out. By heading on over to the show notes. We'll have a link there as well. So you can check it out over at flourishthriveacademy.com/312 to get all the details, the 31 reels hooks and access to our on demand webinar that how to stand out in a saturated market with a timeless jewelry brands. Alright, this is Tracy Matthews, signing off till next time. As always, it's a pleasure to come into your earbuds every single week. Thank you so much for listening to this ship, podcast and show. If you have other jewelry designer or product based business friends who might get value out of this podcast, I'd really love for you to share this episode with them. And the podcast in general because Sharing is caring. And we know that word of mouth is the best way to get this podcast out into the earbuds of more people just like you once again. Thanks again and I'll chat with you later. See you next week.

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. It's my mission to help 1000s of creative businesses inside and outside the jewelry space use their creativity to make money. Make sure that you're subscribed to thrive by design on iTunes, Spotify, Stitcher, and wherever podcasts are played. And we'd love to hear what you think. Please rate and review the show and if you're inspired, please share this with your friends. Cheers to seeing you flourish and thrive.