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Today’s episode is a quick win containing two ways you can repurpose stories to Reels! A lot of times, we create this image in our minds that Reels is too hard, or we just don’t have the right content. We all make excuses, but actually you have the tools right at your fingertips!
To repurpose stories to Reels, listen in!
Welcome back. In the last episode, “How to overcome your fear of Reels,” I mentioned a story that I repurposed into a Reel which generated lots of organic comments. This Reel was not glamorous or glitzy.
Today I wanna share why it worked and how to test your own content before sharing to Reels. The two ways you can repurpose content are by repurposing stories and highlights to Reels. So first, we’re gonna talk about stories today. I’m going to share why my Reel worked, repurposing it from my story and how to test your own content before sharing to Reels.
*This episode contains links to my products. Should you choose to purchase, the show will go on! Woo hoo!
Resources
Listen to Ep. 58: 7 tips for repurposing Instagram stories
Listen to Ep. 63: Leveraging 2023 Instagram Trends
Listen to Ep. 64: Building A YouTube Channel From Repurposed Content
2 Easy ways to repurpose stories to Reels
One thing we keep hearing from Instagram is they’re looking for original content. You don’t have to dance or mouth words like everyone else, but you do need to be unique because that’s what’s going to separate you from the pack. How can you use your own unique content to generate organic engagement that helps you get ideas for even more organic content? Here’s how I did.
Repurpose stories to Reels via testing your audience
My story that I turned into a Reel was super simple, but first I did my research. Stories, as I said in the last episode, are where you meet people and you test their pulse. You see what they respond to and what’s dead. Stories are fantastic for learning what your audience wants. And if you’re not using stories, let me just say, you’re leaving a huge opportunity on the table for reaching your target audience.
Lots of times, I open the conversation in stories with a poll, which I did in this case. The poll was, are you struggling with Reels? Yes or no? So people started responding to that. Then I talked on my stories, showing my face and asking, what’s your biggest hangup with Reels? What’s holding you back?
One thing you wanna do when talking in stories is add the caption sticker, because many people scroll through without sound. This is another way to reach scrollers. So I used the caption sticker to translate my question and people started answering in the DM and the answers that I got were hair, makeup, and fear.
“No one else is as hard on us as we are.”
Then my next step was to address that pain point with a bit of advice based on my expertise. This is what you wanna do. I said, honestly, a lot of our fear has to do with our own judgment of ourselves and our imperfections. Honestly, no one else is as hard on us as we are.
We are afraid of what our adult kids will think. Step into your fear and let go of what people think, even your kids! It’ll take some blunders, but people resonate with imperfection. Basically that sums up what I said in that Reel. Then, I added captions to that little pep talk.
Plus, a couple of stickers ending with someone holding up big panties because my final words were, “put your big girl panties on and do it.” Well, I received lots of positive reaction from that pep talk in my stories. So I got to thinking, why not test this out as a Reel? You may be wondering how you do that.
Note: Save stories to camera roll!
If you’ve not saved your story to your camera roll–and as we all know, stories disappear after 24 hours– there’s a little thing called archives. You can go to your archives and view your stories. You can even reshare them to stories and you can download them to your own device. In my case, my iPhone!
Then I selected which specific frames from that story I wanted, because there were a lot that I wanted to use in my Reel. Then I uploaded them to my Reel and spliced them together to make that one. Always add to to your Reels, by adding captions in stories. Mine already had the text, plus the funny big girl panties sticker.
Always include a hook
Another thing you always wanna do in your Reel is include a hook or a question at the beginning in the form of text on that Reel. So I didn’t have a hook for my story that I was repurposing. Instead I repurposed a photo from my story that day. I put the caption “still afraid of Reels?” and uploaded that as my Reels cover.
Now I’ll include the link to this particular Reel so you can see for yourself what I did, but basically I want you to know that this reel did not go viral. But, do you know what, it spoke to my existing followers! Many came out of the woodwork saying this was exactly what they needed, or this was their problem.
Going viral– Is it actually helpful?
People that hadn’t commented before were commenting. Scads of comments. Here’s the thing about viral y’all, viral is good. If your Reel is niche for your target audience. Viral brings lots of new followers. Viral is also not the norm, but it does happen! Viral is bad if it’s a random Reel.
When that happens, it brings a bunch of new people who think they’re following you for that one random thing. Then they either unfollow once they realize you’re not posting similar content or they never engage, which is even worse, you need engaged followers, which means you need to be posting your niche content.
Niche content comes from using your stories to ask your audience about their pain points that directly correlate to the answers you provide with your branded content.
Repurpose stories to Reels via Highlights
The second way to repurpose to Reels is through your highlights. Are you using them? Highlights are targeted to showcase your content. And the option to repurpose them to Reels is brand new. It’s a new feature, of course but also another reason to clean up your highlights so that you can simply repurpose into Reels content.
Highlights open up a whole other can of worms. I’m sure you have questions about that, so here’s what I want you to do. If you have a highlights question, simply click on the first link in the show notes today to add your question, or send me a DM on Instagram.
We can gather those questions and assemble pertinent information for an upcoming episode regarding your questions on what to include in highlights. Just know that they’re important! They’re a part of your profile and another way to share exactly what you offer and how people can contact you.
To sum up the main points of today’s episode…
Number one, test and poll your audience in stories. Once you hit on something, speak to that, show your face or your product or something. It’s better if you show your face because people connect with a face. Add captions, and use the caption sticker, then go to archives or download before your stories disappear.
You can download in the archives and then upload to Reels. Make sure there is text there! Then make sure that you have a hook at a beginning if you don’t create a cover for your Reel and have that hook or that question.
Secondly, use highlights to repurpose, to Reels.
Thanks again for stopping by! Be sure to slide in my DMs or hit the link in the show notes for your questions on highlights so that we can address that in an upcoming episode. Then, go out there and slay those Reels! They are for you to use, and that is the way to reach your audience in 2022.
Just remember to share your content in your voice, in your own unique, authentic way on Instagram. We’ll see you next time.