Instagram Reels are Big Deals Start doing this hack RIGHT NOW

In this episode of the Art Business Morning Show, Patrick explains the importance of Instagram Reels for artists and photographers aiming to enhance their online presence and drive sales. He discusses why Reels are a crucial marketing tool, their role in the ongoing 'attention wars' between social media platforms, and provides a step-by-step guide to creating and responding to comments using Reels. Additionally, Patrick challenges listeners to actively engage with their audience by responding to at least three comments using this feature over the weekend.

Podcast Transcribe

Patrick Shanahan: Today's edition of the Art Business Morning Show, we are talking about Instagram Reels and why they are big deals. Okay, they are big deals. Specifically, we're going to talk about why Instagram Reels are big deals, why you need to be making them, and some finer points to understand while you're doing so. Welcome back to another edition of the Art Business Morning Show, the show that will put you on the path to a six-figure-a-year art business. It's been a while since I've formally introduced one of these broadcasts as the Art Business Morning Show. It's nice to be back. Happy Friday, everybody. What's up, Courtney Wall? You definitely need to be making some reels.

Instagram Reels have been the topic du jour recently. We've been doing a ton of stuff, teaching internally, getting all of our customers to run them, encouraging people to run them. I was on a call this morning with a customer who has 1.3 million followers on Instagram, and I spent the better part of the call dressing my good buddy down on making more of these things and what he needs to do because it is just so doggone important.

I should mention to the loyal podcast listeners that are going to be listening to this via audio after the fact, and also those of you watching on Instagram, you can stay watching on Instagram, but I'm going to be doing a little show and tell so you can see what this actually looks like. To see that, you need to be watching on Facebook Live or on YouTube Live. If you want to just chill and stay on Instagram, that's fine. I will do a great job of describing what I'm doing. For those of you listening on the podcast after the fact, I'll put a link to this video in the show notes so you can click it.

A little history first because this is important. Throughout social media history, there exist, and have existed, these serendipitous little moments where our social media overlords decide to toss us their DAUs, their daily active users, otherwise known as serfs and peasants, because that's really what we are in this equation, some scraps from their overflowing attention-laden tables. What I mean by that is throughout history, there have been moments where, for certain reasons, the social media platforms are saying, "Hey users, this is something that's important to us right now. If you can take the hint, take the memo, do this, because you're going to be helping us out. We are going to go ahead and help you out." The way they are going to help you out is by giving you free attention, free reach, allowing your content to be seen by more people than it would otherwise. I scratch your back; you scratch mine. We are in one of those little moments in time as it pertains to Instagram Reels.

Instagram, specifically because I know a lot of you guys like to market on TikTok or are contemplating TikTok or are interested in TikTok or whatever, some of you guys are doing YouTube. We've been nuancing our conversation towards Instagram because it's important to say if you are in the business of selling art and photography, your creations, your wall art, then it just behooves you to understand that right now, in 2022, the most important place that you can be doing your marketing is Instagram. It is the best platform to sell art, to sell photography, to sell wall art, and find the biggest pool of actual buyers that are going to purchase your work. That might change. If it does change, we will be banging a drum about it, but right now, it is Instagram.

So we're nuancing the majority of our conversation to Instagram, to Instagram Reels as a product. We are in a moment in time right now where Facebook, Instagram, collectively Meta, is having its lunch eaten by TikTok. They are in the attention wars. Facebook, Meta, Instagram, whatever you want to call it, does not like losing the attention wars, and so they're in a knock-down, drag-out, knuckle-boxing fight with TikTok. How it's working is they are all copying each other verbatim. They are punching below the belt, kicking each other under the dinner table, whatever it is. The good news in all of this is that if we understand this and we do our best to help Instagram win, they are going to reward us. When they play their little music, if we dance to the tune, we get a ton of extra attention. It's a very important idea to understand that and do that.

This whole entire episode can break down to three simple points. Number one: start making reels on Instagram. If you have not started making reels on Instagram, if you're like, "What the heck is a reel on Instagram?" I recommend you fire up Google on the internet machine and type in "How do you make Instagram Reels?" You will be greeted with some lovely results on YouTube from passionate YouTube creators talking about the easy ways to do this. It is very easy to do. Then get onto Instagram and start consuming some reels. All you need to do to fire up your creative engines, to get the sandbox going, to have some things start marinating, is spend some time watching some. Go down the rabbit hole, spend 20 minutes on your lunch break or when you get into bed this evening or when you're vegging out on the couch, and start scrolling through some of these things and just watching them. They are captivating. They are super entertaining. Just by watching some, you'll instantaneously be like, "Whoa, I could do that. Whoa, I've got an idea here. Oh, that's amazing. I could totally get involved in that." You'll start coming up with some ideas, you'll be motivated, you'll be inspired. It turns out you guys are creatives to begin with, and you will start creating them.

That's just an important thing to say at the very, very top—where to start. But what I would like to do today is focus on one particular feature. Going back to what I was saying earlier, all of these guys are just copying each other all over the place, and it's ridiculous. TikTok created this particular feature originally. Jonah, this is very important for you too. TikTok created this feature originally, and the way it works is very simple. You make a reel. In this case, it's a reel, but just think of it as you make a post. Somebody leaves a comment on the post. Ordinarily, we all know how to reply to a comment on a post. Now, with Instagram Reels, what it allows you to do is reply to a comment. It takes the comment and posts it to the top of the video, then it allows you to record a video response to the comment. Rather than replying to the comment via text, you're essentially just replying to the comment via video, via a reel. If you're native to TikTok, you've seen this happen again and again. Instagram just recently rolled out the feature to reels because, again, they're just copying everyone verbatim. YouTube hasn't done it yet for shorts. I don't think. I need to check that. I don't think they have, but they will soon because they're all just copying each other, and that's how it goes. It's a very, very sticky feature.

Both platforms, whether it's TikTok or Instagram, are really trying to encourage this particular part of the social media experience because it's doing everything you would think it would do. It's keeping people on the platform longer, it's keeping people engaged, people are commenting and commenting and responding and commenting. People are doing it for negative comments just as much as they're doing it for positive comments, and there's that back-and-forth banter. In a word, it's entertaining. As a result of it, it's entertaining, it's informative, it's just working. It's working right now at a very high level, and it's very easy to do. What you'll notice about it is that because Instagram is trying to copy TikTok, because Instagram is trying to...a little Spanish lingo thrown in for good measure. You do this, you start doing this, and you will see video view counts that are through the roof. Now, I could care less about video view counts because I don't believe in them. I think they're nonsense, and they are to a certain extent because reels are just a scroll, scroll, scroll product, and every time it's counted as a view. Don't hang your hats on the views. There's no button at the ATM machine for views. I don't care if you have a high view count, but you'll also notice you're getting a ton of likes and a ton of comments. It really is working. It really is working correctly. It's super easy to do. There is not a single solitary person watching this on Instagram, on Facebook, on YouTube, or listening to the podcast later that can't do this.

I literally threw down a challenge to my buddy that I was speaking to earlier, but there's going to be a challenge at the end of this, so I'm going to get into it now. What I'm going to do now that I'm on Facebook, on YouTube, and you guys can see this, and on Twitter and in small wins, I'm going to show you what this looks like and how simple this looks. I'm going to give you some context. What I'm showing on my screen is the Art Storefronts Instagram account. If you've not followed this thing, phenomenal account, phenomenal account. Allow me to toot my own horn while I toot my own horn. You'll notice on the top row are the three latest reels that I've created for our account. I created one that was awesome; it was on SEO. I created another one that was about there's no button at the ATM machine for likes, comments, and shares. Then I did my most recent one, which was a response to a comment. Our Art Storefronts Instagram account has 32,000 followers.

 The first post I did, which was just a regular reel post, got 4,000 views. That's great, that's amazing, right? The second one, which was another regular reels post, got 2,000 views. What's super interesting about this is the reason this one got 2,000 views. Let me just make sure you let me know, okay, I muted it. This one got 2,000 views because I made it on TikTok and then I went and put that video on Instagram. This is just a quick side tip for any of you guys that are doing both. TikTok is trying to kill Instagram; Instagram is trying to kill TikTok. When you make a video on TikTok and you either use the version on your phone and upload it to Instagram or you do the automatic sharing to Instagram, there's a little TikTok logo that bounces around on your screen. Instagram does not like that. Instagram algorithm, when it sees that, says, "Why am I giving TikTok free advertising on my platform? I don't want to do that, I'm not going to do that." So, do not, if you are on TikTok, create things on TikTok and share them on Instagram. Instagram is not going to like it. It is going to suppress the view counts that it gets because it does not want to promote TikTok. They're at war with these guys. That's just a quick little side tangent on how these things work, something you need to pay attention to.

But that's not what I'm here to show you. I'm here to show you, oh, I guess I am here to show you that that one got an extremely low view count. This one that I made, where it highlights a comment, and again, for those on Instagram or those listening on the podcast, this is so simple to do. All you do, and I'm going to show this in just a second, is you make a reel, you get comments on the reel, and you go to respond to a comment. You press a couple of buttons, and it automatically takes this little comment and puts it on the top of the reel that you're about to record. Then you can record your response. This is incredibly powerful because what it does is it inserts itself in the previous reel in which you're commenting, then it also saves in your reels, and then it also goes into your feed and it's able to go everywhere. The view counts that I'm getting doing this are absolutely staggering, bananas, insane. The amount of time it takes me to do this is so short I can't even begin to tell you.

Now, I am going to go ahead and show this, what this looks like, how easy this is. Again, in order for you to be able to do this, you need to be creating reels, and your reels need to get some comments. There is a typical chicken-and-egg situation here, like there always has been, there always will be. You're going to need to create some reels, and you're going to need to get some comments. But the comment, when you're just getting started, doesn't even have to be relevant. You can hack this. If somebody leaves you a comment like smiley face, smiley face, or heart, heart, heart, or bicep, or poop emoji, you could highlight that one, be cheeky, and then just respond nonsense to it or respond whatever you want to it.

So here I am on Instagram, and again, I'm showing this on the screen. My latest reel has seven comments. I'm going to go ahead and grab one of these seven comments that I like. Walt Bayless left, "What a great answer, Patrick." Of course, I'm going to respond to that one. Well done, Walt. Practicing these conversation rhythms is a wonderful use of time. So all I do is I go in and I hit reply to Walt's comment. It gives me the ability to reply like I would normally type in a message, or it lets me use my camera to reply. What it's instantaneously done is now throw this comment at the top of the reel. Do you see how it's thrown the comment to the top of the reel? There it is at the top of the reel. Now all I have to do is record a response, and that's it. When you're doing this on Instagram, one little point to note, and I'll show this on Instagram here too, there is a little time selector that allows you to select if your response is going to be 30 seconds, 15 seconds, or 60 seconds. I'm a loudmouth, and I go long-winded. I need my 60 seconds, so I'm taking my 60 seconds. So I toggled my 60 seconds. I hope you can see that. I know you can. Toggle the 60 seconds, record whatever you're going to record, and hit send. Do you know how little time that takes? That takes almost no time at all, little prep, no prep at all. You've got everything you need right at your fingertips. So all of a sudden, you could turn your camera on, sit down somewhere, I don't care if you're with the dog, you're in the backyard, you're in the passenger seat of the car, whatever you're doing, and respond to some people. Say thank you so much for that feedback. You're awesome. Here's some follow-up on that information. Thank you so much for enjoying my process. Let me tell you some things I was actually doing that you probably didn't see in the video. There are a million creative ways to do this. It is so simple to do this. Anybody can do this. And oh, by the way, it is really powerful that you might engage with the folks that are actually taking an active interest in what you are doing. One of the downsides of this digital world we live in is we tend to live in our little city walls and not engage with any of our customers and potential customers, which is a bad idea. That's not what we want to be doing. So it's a very easy way, and I recommend that you do it just to answer questions and be authentic and say thank you and be cool and do all the non-sales types of activities that you should be doing as a regular course of being an awesome human being and an artist or photographer trying to grow your following. But also, if somebody asks you a buying question, go into selling mode. Go into selling mode. Oh, thank you so much for your question, Michelle Rauch. Did you like that particular piece because it's in my store right now for $199? Send me a DM on Instagram. Send me a DM on Instagram for sale right now.

By the way, that is all something we need to practice. You guys get comments all the time. Your work is so beautiful. This is amazing. Oh, Terry, it is amazing. Thank you. Did you know that it's also for sale? You notice that long awkward pause? The long awkward pause is so important. Yeah, it's for sale. Make me an offer. I've actually got some extra ones on hand. Oh, yeah, you saw that image of Positano that you really liked in my reel. By the way, do you know that I have metal prints? This one's awesome, by the way. Killer bathroom art, totally ready to hang metal, and I'll write a special message for you right on the back if you buy it today. When you guys are getting these comments like, "I really love this piece. This piece is so amazing," or "Is this thing available?" or "What media type is that?" you need to approach this whole comment thing a couple of different ways. One, you need to be responding to more of them, and watch what happens to your Instagram views. It will go through the roof. You'll be like, "I cannot believe how well this works." But two, the buying comments are extremely profound, and it gives you this ability to now have a conversation with somebody about getting into the buying mode that everyone else is going to see. Everyone else is going to end up seeing it. Do you have any idea how powerful that is? So that is just the force multiplier on the force multiplier. These are the subtle things that you need to learn as an artist or as a photographer. You have to be selling. You have to get out of your little shell.

**Rachel**: Essentially, what are some examples of buying questions?

**Patrick**: Your work is amazing. I love what you're doing. Oh, thanks, Rachel. By the way, everything's for sale. Are you interested in a particular piece? Notice the awkward pause. Always leverage the awkward pause. It's just a good conversational rhythm trick that you need to learn. Or somebody's like, "That is amazing. I need one of those in my life." Incredible. This one's for sale for $200. Are you ready to get it today? Again, awkward pause. You need to go on offense. You need to let people know not only is that piece for sale, but I'm having a huge sale right now. I'm having a huge sale. So there are various questions that constitute buying questions. Your work is beautiful. It's so amazing. I love what you're doing. I love your creative style. I love all these different things. All of those are just tiny little inroads to, okay, they're asking a buying question. It's time to ask for the sale. Otherwise, they're just being nice people and flattering you. That's okay. That's great that they're doing it, but you are in business. Business is business. And Christmas is Christmas unless the tree is up. You don't just let those things sit on the side. You go for it. So you need to be able to identify what these types of buying questions are. The fact that we can now leverage these Instagram Reels to put their buying question right up on the screen and just have it right there like that, oh, hold on, I have to mute

 that. Sometimes I have so many things going on I can barely tell. Anyway, what a phenomenal opportunity.

The challenge for you guys, and this only really works for the ones that have been creating reels and have some comments on them, the challenge is I want everyone to respond to three comments this weekend. I'm going to be individually auditing all of your Instagram profiles. I know who you are. I've got my whole weekend cleared out. This is all I'm going to be doing. I want to see that you guys are responding. I want to see in your reels these little comments right up at the top, asking you questions, you saying thank you, and responding, and doing what you can. It is such an easy way to pack your social media feeds with comments. What do I hear all the time? "Patrick, I don't know what to post. I don't have any ideas." Yeah, well, guess what? All you have to do here is respond to comments. All you're doing here is responding to comments. Tell me you don't have any ideas. Give me a break with that nonsense. Get that out of here. So respond to some comments this weekend. That is the challenge for all of you. Get on to reels. If you're not on to reels, research reels, fire up Google on the internet machine, figure it out. And that's what I've got for you today.