Instagram has announced a new feature that allows businesses to boost their Reels to turn them into ads in order to reach new audiences. Boosted Reels will appear in feed, Stories, the Reels tab and the explore page. To be eligible to boost your Reel, the Reel must be less than 60 seconds and have a 9:16 aspect ratio, which means it must be filmed vertically and have a full-screen format.
The social media giant notes that Reels that use third-party IP, such as copyrighted music, GIFs, interactive stickers or camera filters are not eligible for boosting at this time. Reels that are posted to Facebook also aren’t eligible for boosting.
Businesses can boost their reels by finding the Reel in their profile grid and tapping the “Boost Post” button. After running your ad, Instagram says it’s important to check your Insights to learn which ads brought in the most engagement.
“Keep boosting your reels to connect with your audience and attract potential new customers,” Instagram said in a blog post. “Instagram Reels are a fun, entertaining way to tell your brand story and get discovered by new audiences. Reels is our fastest-growing format and an important part of Instagram, as more people watch Reels to be entertained, go deeper with their interests or discover new businesses.”
The launch of the new feature comes as Meta has been betting big on Reels. As part of its Q1 2022 earnings, the company revealed that Reels now make up more than 20% of the time that people spend on Instagram. Meta will likely provide an updated number during its earnings release on July 27.
In addition, Meta recently introduced Reels APIs to several endpoints on the Instagram Platform for developers. Developers can use the APIs to schedule Reels and get social interaction metrics for Reels. Developers can also publish Reels on Instagram Business accounts using the new APIs. The APIs will also let developers reply to comments, delete comments, hide/unhide comments and disable/enable comments on Reels.
