As an owner of a ghost kitchen, catering business, production facility or micro bakery, chances are if you're a food entrepreneur you wear one too many hats, some not even related to cooking at all.
With the hundreds of priorities that come with owning a business, you may now be fairly familiar with social media and the growing value of video marketing.
When it comes to digital marketing and ever-evolving algorithms, features like Instagram reels, Youtube Shorts or Tiktok have been slowly dominating social media by driving engagement and converting strangers into customers.
These short, entertaining videos have a unique way to capture attention, but how do you use this tool to grow your business? In this guide, we’ve broken down how we use Reels at Coho Collective.
If you’re curious how to make reels, Hubspot has a fun video below that takes you through this process step-by-step.
Trending Audio: We start by using the explore function from each of our three accounts to discover new audio by scrolling through reels we think would resonate with our demographics.
By scrolling for a few minutes, we’ll typically find a reel we want to emulate or a song we think our audience would like. By clicking on the song title on the bottom left, you can see how many reels have been made using that song (we aim for around 100k+). From there, we save the audio to our account.
Something we will continuously emphasize is there is no right or wrong way to make reels. If you think a song represents your brand, or you just really want to use it - just use it and experiment.
Pre-Production: Unless there is a campaign in mind, we approach every video with a focus: people, products, processes or promotion.
People: To showcase the reason why our members do what they do.
Product: To showcase the versatility, and potential of the products.
Process: To showcase the amount of work and intricacies of making a product.
Promotion: To showcase campaign-relevant content or an announcement of sorts.
Filming:
Keep in mind to film vertically (9:16) as this is the way viewers will likely see your video on social media.
It’s good to approach every shot with your focus in mind and to ask how this is relevant to the video.
How long you should make your video can vary based on your audience demographics and view duration.
The entire video, however long, should be relevant to your goals and in turn, provide something of value to your audience: teaching them something or showing your personality.
Consider what your cover photo will be! This is especially important if you plan to post this on your feed, and could tie back to what the focus of your video will be, or what is known as a “hero shot”.
Editing: We’ve been editing in PremierPro, which averages out to around $15/month. This may be overkill, but there are plenty of free or mobile resources.
Instagram is the default video editor since it’s fairly seamless from filming to editing and posting.
TikTok as a video editor is good for many reasons beyond just editing. Tiktok being a video-first platform, it comes with several effects, filters, transitions and editing tools. Also if you have the capacity, it’s worthwhile to explore posting on TikTok as you try to grow your Instagram following.
PremierPro Rush is a mobile-friendly version of PremierPro and comes with plenty of filters and effects perfect for mobile.
Splice is a good mobile editor with plenty of filters, transitions and effects - and comes at a very affordable price.
Tips & Tricks:
Reels are the best way to showcase your personality and your interests. They're also a great opportunity to show off your creative skills. If you want to make a good impression with your Reel, here are some tips from Later and a summary of the 2022 Met Gala guidelines.
A few points we’d like to focus on are:
Relate to your audience by creating content that clicks with people.
Tell a story: have a beginning, middle, and end, but it starts with your perspective.
Showcase your personality: whatever's happening right now, people want to hear your take on it.
Share your passions by teaching people something
Share something that's uniquely you or your business.
Good luck!