Case Study: Reach On Your Instagram Reels vs. Feed Posts

How many of you are super frustrated with the Instagram algorithm and how they are favoring Reels over IG Posts?

Not sure if you’ve noticed, but for my account, anytime I post a regular IG post or carousel, insights are WAY low for it – likes, engagement, reach, all the things are low. It’s very easy to get frustrated with Instagram for essentially forcing us into something we may or may not want to do.. what if video is super intimidating for someone? Does their Instagram just go stagnant or do you keep posting IG posts and hope your insights reach a higher climb?

In the past few weeks, I’ve been experimenting a lot more with JUST posting reels. I did a full week of reels, a week of a mixture and a week of just posts and I’m here to report back what happened in the backend for my insights in hopes this can help you apply to your own Instagram strategy!

Before I begin sharing insights, please know a few things:

These are insights from my own Instagram (@chloecreativestudio). The strategies and tactics discussed throughout this blogpost may not work for you – this post is for educational purposes with what has worked for me.
Data has been taken from the last 3 months. I’m measuring reach and impressions.

First Data Image: Post Reach [carousels/single image]

From the above image, you can see that all posts in either carousel or single image post style have reached on average, 750 users in my audience. The 3 top-most performing post were all in regards to our rebrand launching on January 3, 2022 – which, makes sense because it’s an exciting launch announcement.

Second Data Image: Reels Reach during the same time still posting normal feed posts on average 1 reel per week

In the image above, you can see with posting on average one reels a week alongside my normal carousel or image posts on IG, the reels’ reach was nearly double. My top performing reel during this time was a reel that spoke to my ideal audience.

Third Data Image: Ramping up my Reels game with 3-4 reels per week with little to no carousel/image posts

Crazy right? As soon as Instagram realized that I was taking advantage of the reels game and started posting them consistently, it seems they rewarded me with way more reach than any of my posts could have ever received. As you can also see, my top three reels had “aesthetic” cover photos which made me wonder if Instagram likes cover photos instead of choosing a snapshot of the reel recording?

Fourth Data Image: Last 30 Days content reach / sources

The above image was measured in the last 30 day window when I geared up my reels game and began posting 3-4 reels per week. From the content reach outline, you can see that 69.2k users found me from reels alone, while posts sat at a very sad 3,543. What does this tell me? Clearly Instagram wants you to be posting reels.

Further down at the bottom of the image, you can see my top posts based on reach, which only got 699 users…

Here’s the summary: although we hate it, Reels is where we need to drive our content.

I’m not here to tell you that I absolutely adore reels and love creating them – that’s not me. They actually take a lot longer than normal feed posts and for my account, they have to be speaking to my ideal client directly or they will receive little to no traction. So, what can you do to up your reels game for your nutrition business?

Ask your ideal audience what they want to see: reels or posts?
Ask your audience what content they look forward to the most – what topics do they want you to cover? This will help you repurpose them into reels!
Visit the main “Reels” tab on Instagram and search for trending sounds. Go ahead and record a video with the sound and think of the caption/content later! They will not stay trendy long so it’s best to be quick to post!
Be original with your ideas. With viral video content, it’s easy to want to “copy” the style from someone else who received 100K+ views on a reel, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to work that way for you! Originality is key!

If you have any reels tips that you’d found to work best for your business, I’d love to hear them! What about TikTok? Are y’all on there? I just started and am testing out the waters of TikTok versus IG Reels! Stay tuned!