Exploring Instagram Content: Posts, Stories, Lives, and Reels

Hello and welcome to section three of the Instagram Bootcamp, where we'll be discussing the types of Instagram posts, how to edit your post in Reels, and we're going to put all that together in a demo post that you'll do. Alright, so there are three types of Instagram, or really four types of Instagram posts, right, or content. First is what's in your feed, right?

The original format of Instagram was only a square image format, but in 2016, Instagram changed to support a portrait four by five ratio as well as a landscape ratio. The timeline supports both photos and video, and additionally, the explore and shop sections can feature feed posts, right, it'll show up in those sections as well. Then there are stories, right?

What is unique about stories? They disappear in 24 hours. Where do stories start? Well, on Snapchat, right, they came out with that initial type of content, and it was so successful, and the app, you know, grew in popularity with this format, so Instagram basically said, okay, we could do the same thing, too. And that particular aspect of stories is something we're going to circle back to and explain which types of content you might want to communicate, and which stories are ideal for.

Right, there's also Instagram Live, where you can, you know, go live and directly communicate with your audience. When someone wants you follow, go live, you usually get an update. We could be friends at a concert, or in the case of a brand, you can live stream company announcements, live stream webinars, things of that nature, and we'll talk a little bit more about that.

And then there are Reels, right? Now, stories came from Instagram where the Reels, sorry, stories came from Snapchat. Where did Reels come from? Reels came from, of course, TikTok.

The Reels were formatted for the smartphone, so all of them are in the vertical format. The other aspect of Reels that is unique is that they're shorter, right? Reels, compared to regular videos, are shorter in length.

So you're, you know, able to consume a lot of Reels in one sitting, right? When someone's engaging on TikTok, or in this case, Instagram, they may see half a dozen, a dozen in Reels, in a very short period of time. So Reels, as we will talk a little bit more about, is a great place for discovery, right?

And we'll look at the Instagram platform, and I'll show you, you know, where that type of Reel content is curated for you and the implications of that. So as we know, you know, there are four types of Instagram content, and we're going to focus right now on the post or feed content, stories, and Reels, right? What, you know, what are the advantages of posting this different type of, each of these different types of content? With posts, with feed posts, they're great for engaging with your followership, because what shows up in your feed is essentially content from those that individuals you're following, and brands that you're following on Instagram, right?

So as you build out an audience, it's a great way of having consistent communication with your audience, right? But what is difficult to do is to gain new followers with feed posts, right, because it's mainly going to be presented to people who you're already following you, right. There's another format that's more ideal for that.

Then there are stories, right? So we already explained that stories are short, short in duration. They only exist for 24 hours, but what else about stories? They show up at the top of your page, right, whether it's on your mobile or if you're, you know, on a desktop, it's on the top of your screen.

So it's the first thing you see, and the stories that you see are generally stories from the accounts you have the most interaction with. So the fact that there's a shelf life, so to speak, with this form of content tends to cause people to interact with it as a priority, right? Oh, if I don't check this out now, it's going to be gone, plus it's right there at the top of your page.

So if you do have information that you want to get to your followers that's time sensitive, it's a great place to put it because your biggest followers, you'll be on top of their page, right? So content that you want to target towards your biggest followers or content that is of a time sensitivity, like a sale that's coming up, last chance to purchase tickets. Those are all great types of messaging to include in your stories as well as other types of messages, of course, but the immediacy of the platform makes it ideal for that, of this type of content, rather.

Then Reels, right. So Reels, as we know, are the vertical videos that are shorter in length. They're ideal for gaining a larger audience and followership because as long as you allow for Instagram to share through the Reels feed, the video could be put in front of thousands of more people on the platform because the Reels section isn't just content from those you follow, it's content curated by the Instagram algorithm to people who, based upon their behaviors on that platform, we're going to go into more detail on the algorithm, are more likely to be interested in that content, right.

And that's how you can build your following on Instagram by having content that shows up in a Reels section, right? So, in addition to that, another positive of having content and another aspect of Reel content is that the audience engages with a large quantity of Reels in every sitting, so they're getting exposed to more and more content, more and more brands. So that is what a great way to use Reels: to build your audience.

Post, to communicate with those already following you and stay in front of them, continue to sustain brand awareness, and be helpful to them. Stories, when you particularly use them, are another great use of stories, in that they stay on top of your personal page or brand page. So you will see many brands that will use stories as a way to summarize aspects of their product or service, right?

So we'll show you all that in a moment. We'll go to Instagram, and we can see.