Is your brand using Instagram Reels? If you’re in the Fashion, Luxury and Beauty (FLB) space, Instagram is no doubt a key part of your marketing strategy – and that means you should be giving the Reels feature plenty of attention.
As we’ll see in this post, maximizing your presence on Reels is important for increasing visibility and engagement on Instagram. We only have to take a look at Google searches related to some of the most used formats on Instagram to realize the growing interest that REELs have generated, especially in the last year 👇
But it is also interesting to analyze its media value to better understand the return on investing in this format. From Launchmetrics we have analyzed three cases of industry brands -Adidas, Levi's, and GAP- to better visualize the differences in Media Impact Value™ generated through the Instagram REELs format vs the traditional Feed placements. Thanks to our technology we were able to see that in all three cases, the REELs led to a higher MIV® overall. And in the case of GAP, whose Owned Media strategy is especially supported in general by a lot of content with this format, the difference is impressively large with 160% more MIV® generated by the brand through REELs.
But to make that happen, you need to be tracking and measuring how your content is doing so you can adjust your strategy accordingly. So let’s look at how FLB brands are using Reels, why they should be a key part of your strategy, and how to track their performance.
In this article you’ll learn…
What are Instagram Reels?
Reels are Instagram’s answer to TikTok videos. They can be up to 90 seconds long, and they display in vertical, full-screen format. The appeal of Reels is that they offer unique tools for filming and editing video – for example, you can speed up or slow down the footage, trim, stitch, add special effects, and more. Audio is also key with Reels: much like TikTok, you can add music tracks, voiceovers, and snippets of other users’ audio to your videos. Reels are different from Stories in that they’re video only, users can publicly comment on them, and they stay on Instagram until deleted (unlike Stories, which automatically disappear after 24 hours).
How FLB brands are using Reels
Reels are an incredible tool for brands because they appear in multiple locations across the app, giving them greater visibility and discoverability.
Reel videos can be discovered through the Explore tab or the dedicated Reels tab, as well as on each user’s profile. As a result, they’re a great way for brands to be discovered by new users and have become the number one Instagram tactic for reaching new audiences.
FLB brands have been quick to embrace Reels, both through their Owned Media and via Influencer Voices.
Here are some of the key ways FLB brands are using Reels:
- Styling inspiration and “how to” videos.
- Sharing user-generated viral content that resonates with their demographic. For example, one of GAP’s most popular Reels with 620k views is this repost of a video that parodies moms in their 30s and 40s.
- Sharing behind-the-scenes content.
- Demonstrating brand values. For example, this video from Levi’s with almost 800k views takes a nostalgic look back through time whilst conveying the brand value of sustainability:
Or Adidas’ Reels around their #RunForTheOceans campaign:
- Launching new products.
- Announcing events.
Beyond that, one of the most popular and effective ways to use the format is simply to understand what it’s all about and embrace the zeitgeist. A video with fun transition effects and a danceable soundtrack – like the below example from Calzedonia – shows the brand has a finger on the pulse of what followers enjoy seeing on social media right now.
Why Instagram Reels matters for your brand?
Instagram is shifting its focus toward video due to the growing engagement that video content generates. As a result, Reels has gained increasing relevance and continues to grow in importance for brands.
According to Google Trends, Reels is the platform’s fastest-growing feature and continues to outpace Stories in online searches. It’s also the number one feature for engagement. According to various reports, engagement of other types of posts has declined year-on-year, with Reels being the only type of post to see growth.
With Instagram prioritizing Reels, brands that have failed to pivot may have seen engagement rates drop, while those that have gotten on board are seeing the move pay off.
That said, the only way to really know how well your Reels videos are working is to track and measure their performance.
Why you should track Reels?
Tracking Reels allows you to understand what your audience likes and dislikes, and what resonates with them the most. It can also help you learn which days and times are best for posting, and what the “sweet spot” is for your videos in terms of length.
Collecting this data about your brand’s Owned Media gives you the opportunity to optimize your Instagram marketing strategy for maximum reach, interaction, and engagement.
Another important aspect is tracking Reels by Influencer Voices that feature your brand. This can help you better understand which influencers are talking about you, how their audiences are responding, and which influencers are best for you to work with on campaigns.
Instagram Reel Insights provides a wealth of useful data on Reels, though, as we’ll see below, it’s also important to go beyond this and get a holistic view of where Reels fit into your broader marketing strategy.
How to track Reels for Fashion, Luxury and Beauty brands
Using Instagram Insights, you can find out how well your Reels perform in terms of:
- Plays
- Accounts reached
- Likes
- Comments
- Saves
- Shares
These are all extremely helpful metrics from an operational perspective as you can use them to adjust your tactics and inform future campaigns.
However, there’s a way to go above and beyond this, and it’s key to out-strategizing the competition. What you need is a metric that can unify all of your brand efforts and give you a 360-degree view of the ROI that all of your brand efforts and Owned Media strategy are generating.
A standardized metric like Launchmetrics Media Impact Value™ (MIV®) will allow you to gain a deeper insight into all of your social media efforts – not just Instagram but Facebook, WeChat if your brand works in China, YouTube and more. Using MIV® as a key metric, you can see each post’s ROI as a dollar value making it easy to compare performance across every platform.
Reel videos are now trackable using Launchmetrics MIV®. If you’d like to see firsthand how a standardized, cross-platform metric can completely transform the way you approach your marketing strategy, visit this page to learn more or request a demo 👇
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By Launchmetrics Content Team
The Launchmetrics content team is always on the lookout for new trends in the fashion and technology sector. We are geeks with style and lovers of good stories!
