Reels are short vertical videos on Instagram and Facebook, Meta’s answer to TikTok. For businesses, they’re currently the format with the greatest potential for organic reach: the algorithm also shows Reels to people who don’t follow your profile, which makes them the main way to get in front of new people without an ad budget.
Why do Reels get more reach than posts?
Instagram is competing with TikTok for people’s time, so it pushes the format that holds their attention. A standard image post mainly reaches your followers, while a Reel goes into recommendations and Explore, where distribution depends on how viewers react: retention (how many seconds people watch), shares and saves. A good opening (hook) matters more here than camera quality. A Reel shot on a phone with a strong idea will often beat a polished production with no idea behind it.
How should a business approach Reels?
Steadily and systematically. When we manage social media for clients, we work in series: a few formats (such as ‘a customer question’, ‘before/after’, ‘3 mistakes in…’), regular posting and a review of results every few weeks. Formats that deliver organic reach and saves get scaled up; the rest get replaced. We’ve covered how much to post, and why consistency beats frequency, in our article How often to post on Instagram.
Related terms: hook, organic reach.
