IMPORTANT: THIS TRANSCRIPT IS AUTOMATICALLY GENERATED. WE GIVE IT A QUICK CHECK THROUGH BUT WE DON’T CORRECT EVERYTHING AS IT’S INTENDED TO HELP YOU FIND PARTS YOU WANT TO LISTEN TO AGAIN - NOT AS AN EXACT TRANSCRIPT. SO THERE MIGHT BE A FEW QUIRKY WORDS/PHRASES HERE!
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Last month, Instagram announced that reels were being rolled out across the Facebook. So what are Facebook reels and how can they help your business? I am Janet Murray and I'm a content and online business strategist. And in this episode of the courageous content podcast, I'll fill you in on what you need to know about Facebook reels. So first off a disclaimer, I'm recording this episode in mid-March 2022.
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So if you listen to in the future, it may well be that there have been updates and changes, but this is what we know at the moment. Facebook rails are pretty much like Instagram reels. They're short form videos up to 60 seconds long and Facebook reels at the time of recording have similar features to Instagram reels in that you can add music, use trending sounds,
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the remix feature, which allows you to do at another video, which means you can record yourself commenting on or even singing along or dancing along to someone else's video or even one of your own. Actually you can create Facebook reels in the app itself, or you can share your Instagram wheels to Facebook. And if you're wondering where to find wheels on Facebook,
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they sit right at the top of your newsfeed. And then like on Instagram, when you share real to Facebook, it will also appear on users' newsfeeds who don't follow you, which is why according to the head of Instagram, Adam Masery, this is a great way to increase your week because you'll get discovered by new people as ever Facebook and Instagram seem to be following in the footsteps of tick-tock and have also announced plans to pay creators for reels via the all new wheels play bonus program,
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which sounds very similar to the Tik TOK creative fund. And if you're interested in how that works, have a listen to my interview with a wedding pianist, Nicole Raynolds, that episode is called how Tik TOK blew up my creative business at our electorate in the show notes, magician Elliot Bibby talked about the creative fund too, in the interview entitled how cheese toast is made me into a Tik TOK influencer.
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I'll link to that one in the show notes to creators who are parts of the rails play program, get paid a bonus for wheels that get at least a thousand views over a 30 day period, and can be paid up to $35,000 a month. If you're listening in the future though, remember I'm recording this in mid-March 2022. These numbers may have changed.
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And in particular, the number of views to get paid seems pretty low, just a thousand views across every video. I imagine that if this game takes off, that will rise fairly soon. Another new development is ad say before this announcement content creators on the site could only include ads in their Facebook videos. The new Facebook reels overlay ads means that creators can place marketing bumpers directly on top of their reels like stickers.
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There's also banner ads, a semi-transparent overlay at the bottom of rails and sticker ads are apparently set to follow, and those can be placed anywhere on a reel. So it's some interesting things to come as ever though. I would be careful about simply hitting the reset button. If you're already creating meals, you might be listening to this thinking, great.
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I can just reshare my Instagram rails over on Facebook and that's going to save me time. But remember it's only worth doing it if it works. And here's why the way the social media algorithm works on most platforms is when you post a new piece of content, it gets shown to a percentage of your followers. If it gets a good amount of engagement in the first few hours,
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it will typically be shown to more people, if not it won't. So if you hit the share button and your Facebook community loves your reels great, but if they don't really land with that audience, we sharing them could actually harm your reach. And I know in my own case that I have very different audiences on Instagram and Facebook. So I sometimes share infographics that do really well on Instagram,
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get great engagement. I share that very same infographic on my Facebook page and it's a bit, yeah, whatever, barely attracts a comment. What seems to resonate much more strongly with people who follow my Facebook page are long opinion-style posts. Sadly, there isn't a magic formula for marketing, which is why it's to get the best results from your content.
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You really do need to test things out and then the more of what works. And by the way, another update for you back in February, that's 2022. If you're listening in the future, I published an episode entitled. Yes, you should add covers on your Instagram rails. And here's how to do it. In that episode, I talked about how adding a cover to your reel,
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which you used to be able to do via the app could help you maintain that consistency on your grid. And unfortunately, that's now been taken away. You can still add covers if you're creating your reels outside of the app. For example, if you're using a tool like InShot or Kapwing, but you do need to be careful about something I talked about in that episode,
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which is why it's still worth a lesson, not letting your cover last for longer than a smidge of a second. In that episode, I talked about how some people add covers their Instagram reels in apps like Canva or Kapwing that lasts for three seconds. And unfortunately, people's attention spans are very short. If they have to sit and watch your cover for three seconds,
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they've probably already lost interest by that point. So I hope that was a helpful update as ever ideal of hearing from you. And the best place to connect with me is on social media. I'm at Jan Marie UK, or most social media platforms.
