Create a Reels video - Instagram Tutorial

- [Instructor] Now let's take a look at the Reels feature, which is yet another way to share content on Instagram, but with more of a focus on short video clips and making your content discoverable by other Instagram users who aren't necessarily following you. Reels lets you record or edit together clips for a video that can total up to 30 seconds in length, and also apply effects and music to the video. The content of Reels videos is entirely up to you. Some people use them to create quick instructional videos like a super fast recipe, or to show off dance moves, or just to make funny videos of themselves and their friends. If you go to the Explore tab on Instagram, in addition to seeing the usual photos from accounts that Instagram thinks you might be interested in, you'll see at least one Reels video here at the top. Tapping on that lets you view your Reels feed. You can also tap the Reels button, which is the center button at the bottom here to go directly to your wheels feed at any time. And once you're watching a Reel, you can swipe up to watch content from other users. And you can do this almost endlessly. As you watch if you come across content that you really like, you can tap the Like button, or even tap Follow to follow that user which can help Instagram start to learn the kind of content that keeps your attention and it will gradually customize the Reels feed to your interests. Just be aware that it can start to get a little addicting to keep swiping through Reels because there's always another short video to watch. All right, but how do you create your own Reels account? You can either start on your Profile page, or your Home Screen and tap your image to open up your Story camera. Now because I published photos to my Story earlier, I'm seeing them right now, but I can tap my icon in the upper left to go to the camera. And I just have my phone sitting on my desk right now, which is why the screen is currently black. So this is the same way you create and add to your Story, but notice at the bottom of the screen we can switch to Reels. Here on the left side of the screen, we have buttons to access the editing tools you can use to design the feel of your Reels video. Here at the top, you can choose whether to record a video with a 15 or a 30 second limit, I'll keep mine set to 15. Below that we have the Audio button, this allows you to search for a song from the Instagram music library to accompany your video. So you can Browse through the available artists here, or you can do a Search to see if a song you want to use is available. And you can preview songs by tapping the Play button to the right of them. (upbeat music) And if that's the song you want to use, just select it. (upbeat music) Now when you select a song, you'll be given the option to select the portion of the song that you want to use in your Reel. Remember Reels are only a maximum of 15 seconds in length so you won't be able to include the entire song in those cases. So here you can move the selected area at the bottom to find the portion you want to use. (upbeat music) You can just scroll around to different sections of the song. ♪ Couldn't ♪ (upbeat music) And I tap Done. After selecting a song that audio will play when you hit Record, so you'll be able to dance to it, or lip sync to it, or sync it up to any other actions you're capturing on camera. Now, of course you don't have to select music at all, and instead just record the naturally existing audio with your phone's microphone as you shoot your videos. (upbeat music) So if I wanted to cancel the music, I can just click the Trashcan icon in the upper left hand corner. Now note that if you record your own audio if you have a public Instagram account, other users will be able to create Reels from the audio from your video, by selecting the Use Audio option that appears. You might be familiar with this sort of thing if you've ever used TikTok where it's very popular to take someone else's audio and create your own video around it. Below the Audio button there's a Speed Control button, and this lets you select how slow or fast your video records, and this can be used to create a slow motion or a high speed effect. Under that we have Effects, and if you select that you'll see a selection of Effects you can swipe through to apply to your videos. You can apply Effects to each individual video clip that makes up your Reel. Below that is the Touch Up button, which smooths out your skin and can reduce the appearance of blemishes which can be useful if you're shooting with the front facing camera. And the last button here is the Timer. This lets you specify how long you want a clip to record for. Those can go all the way up to the full 15 seconds or 30 seconds if that's the length of clip you've selected, and setting a duration will also give you an onscreen timer that counts down before recording begins. Notice the countdown is currently set to three seconds, but I can tap that to switch to 10 seconds if I need more time. And that can be really useful if you need time to jump in front of the camera, or to get ready before recording. I'll just leave that off for now. All right, so with those settings in mind, let's record a short Reel. So I can pick up my phone and put my camera where I want it, and then I just have the Record button here at the bottom, and record a few seconds, and then tap the Record button again to stop. So I can see the Progress bar at the top, telling me how much of the 15 second time limit I've taken up. Now after recording a clip, you'll notice some additional buttons have appeared on screen. To the left of the Record button, I can tap to review the clip that I just recorded. If I don't like it, I can tap the Trashcan icon to delete it and start again, or I can tap the scissors to trim the clip. This allows me to grab the handles on either end to adjust the length of the clip. And now we're just using that portion of what I recorded. I'll tap Trim to make the edit, we can see the clip again and I'll tap Done. I could post that video as is if that's all I wanted to record and share, but we can also continue adding clips by tapping Record button again. And I'll stop recording again. Now after I recorded my first clip, you might've noticed that another button appeared on the left side of the screen. We have the Align button here, and that helps you line up objects from your previous clip before recording your next clip. And that can help you create a more seamless transition between the clips. So I can line that up here, hit Record again, and stop recording again. Now another way to use the Record button instead of tapping it is to hold down on it. This then allows you to slide your finger up and down on the screen to zoom in and out while recording. So I'll hold down on the Record button, and just slide up and down. Now I hit my 15 second time limit, if I hit the Back button up here, you can see that the bar at the top is completely filled. Let's go back and review our footage. And again, if I wanted to edit some of this, I could click the Trim button, and chop out a portion of that, and tap Trim. So again, to review your footage, you just come to this screen here. You can go back to previous clips by tapping the thumbnails down at the bottom. You can also scrub backwards and forwards through all of your clips by sliding your finger left and right on the screen, or up and down for finer grain control. And again, if you want to trim or delete any clips, you can do that from here. When you're done recording, we can tap Done, and then tap the button to the right of the Record button. Now notice here we have some of the same tools from Stories at the top of the screen, so we can add texts or gifts or drawings to your Reel. So I can add some text, I can change the font maybe, and move that around. And when you're ready to publish your Reel, tap Share to. And here in the Share page, you'll decide where or with whom you want to share this with. If you want it to appear under the Explore tab so that it might show up in the Reel's feed of other Instagram users, just keep Reel selected here at the top. We also have the option here to share it to your own feed so that it shows up just like any other Instagram posts that your followers will see. And as usual, you can write a Caption or you can tag people in the video. Now if you have a private Instagram account, Reels adheres to your privacy settings, so you can share to just your feed and people won't be able to use the audio from your Reels or share your Reels with others who don't follow you. There's also the option here at the top to share your Reel's content so that it shows up as a regular Story as well. This can useful when you want to add something to your Story that's more than just a still image or a single short video clip, but I'll keep mine set to Reels, and when I'm ready, I can tap Share. And that ends up in the Reels feed now. So that's a look at the Reels feature in Instagram.