Episode 31 - Instagram Reel Strategies with Angela Shae
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Today we are going to be chatting about a topic that is HUGE for running and marketing your business today: Instagram reels. We are sitting down with entrepreneur and photographer Angela Shae to chat the ins and outs of reels. Angela Shae is the owner of Social Templates Co., a company that provides made for you reel templates. In today’s episode, we talk about all things reel, how to go viral how to get the best content for reels, why reels are important for your business, how to step up to the big and scary algorithm, and so much more. Angela doesn't shy away from giving us all solid advice on how to make the best reels possible for your business.
EC: Start out by sharing a little bit about yourself and your background!
Angela: I started shooting weddings professionally at 19, back in 2009 and did that for about over a decade. During that time, I had two kids, juggled being a very young mom, a creative and a business owner. I went through seasons of burnout, extreme anxiety, depression and all the things. In 2016, I made a conscious decision to start taking on less weddings to be more preset for my family, cut back on all the editing and just organically transitioned into helping photographers with their social media (mainly Instagram). Out of that my Instagram Management agency was born and that’s been running and operating for over 4 years now.
EC: Why should photographers care about reels? What's the purpose of them, how are people consuming content these days, etc?
Angela: First thing we should get out of the way — video content is not going anywhere. Instagram is never going to go back to being a photo only platform. People need to accept and adapt to the changes. Photographers need to find a way to show their photo content in a video format. The great thing about reels is that they are your primary tool right now for being discovered by people who are not already following your work. Majority of Instagram users are spending their time scrolling reels and watching stories, so photographers need to think about where their clients are spending their time and meet them there. I’m calling it now, photographers are going to start offering videos or reels, or some version of this, as part of their services, or an add on to the services.
EC: Let’s talk about the big, scary Instagram Algorithm. What’s your take on it?
Angela: We hear people complain about their posts not being shown or photos being hidden, or the algorithm messing with their engagement, but in reality, it’s only adjusting to human behavior. Instagram is showing you more of what you’re already spending your time on. So if you or your audience is spending their time watching reels or videos, overtime that’s all that they’ll be seeing. Collectively, most of the users on Instagram are choosing to spend more time on videos or reels. Photographers need to find a way to meet their potential clients where they are spending time. You go to them. You show up where they are hanging out.
EC: What do you think is better: going viral to get clients, or traditionally booking paying clients?
Angela: I’m guessing that most people listening today are hoping that I have the magic formula for going viral and getting millions of views. Unfortunately, I don’t have a secret formula, I’m actually going to discourage you from going viral. Here’s why. Going viral doesn't necessarily mean you’ll get bookings or paying clients. It doesn’t even mean increased engagement on your other content. Going viral can actually hurt your account and overall reach in the future. The more niche your content, the better engagement you’ll have. And even if you lose followers, that’s not a bad thing, they weren’t going to become a paying client anyways, so it’s actually better that they don’t follow your account. I’m very supportive of creating great content that will get a couple thousand of views, but at the end of the day, unless you’re an influencer that gets paid for views or you’re trying to be some type of content creator machine, going viral shouldn’t be your goal. It’ll flood your account with followers who are not looking to book you.
EC: How can you get better content for reels?
Angela: I love this question! I have so much I can share on this topic. Make it your second shooter’s job to capture iPhone BTS content. Like seriously, make it their job. When you go over the plan for the day, make it very clear that you need to walk away from the day with plenty of social media content. Photographers who do this well, rarely have trouble getting inquiries. If you are at a wedding and don’t have a second shooter with you, you as the photographer need to make it a priority to shoot BTS content. There are ways to make this not awkward. I’ve seen it done and most clients LOVE to see some BTS on Instagram at the end of the night or the following day. Change the video settings on your iPhone camera. No need to shoot in 4K, IG will still compress it, but change your settings to 60 fps. This is what will give you the smooth cinematic video and will automatically make your videos look more elevated. Edit your videos in VSCO app. It takes like a minute and all of the sudden your footage looks magical. Imagine that, in slow motion, paired with epic music. That’s some easy marketing content right there.
EC: How can using Instagram reel templates make it easy for photographers to share reels?
Angela: The most time consuming part of creating a reel is getting the photos to sync to the beat properly. Within our Social Templates, we simplify the entire process for you. The template is already synced perfectly to the beat. There’s literally a mathematical formula that gets implemented into making sure that everything is perfectly synced with the beat. We are constantly adding new and trending audios to keep things relevant. All the time consuming tasks are already done, so all the photographer has to do is literally drop in their photos and they can post the reel to their account. There should be no reason a photographer isn’t posting reels.
EC: Talk a little about Social Templates — how the community works, how many templates they have access to, can they add photos or just video?
Angela: It’s a private community with access to handcrafted reel templates. We currently have over 70 templates and new templates are getting added weekly. We are always listening to our community for feedback and requests for specific templates or audios. There’s a variety of templates available, some are designed to be photo only, others you can mix both photo and video. Social Templates is a monthly subscription that you can cancel anytime with no strings attached. Since my days as a wedding photographer and then a social media manager, my goal was to help other photographers find a better work/life balance. Find a way to do more of things that are life-giving. As the industry changes, I see that many photographers, who are already wearing a million hats as business owners, are also needing to be content creators now. So I saw a need and found a way to help photographers with marketing and content creation all while hopefully giving back some of their time.
