🤫 Secrets to IG Reels Virality
Brands and creators getting unique with video...
GM all. Currently drinking a post-gym smoothie and listening to my fav “2 Hours of Chill Playboi Carti Songs by Adrian (528Hz)” video on YouTube. LOL.
Today I want to spotlight two creators/brands crushing short form video and how they’re doing it.
But first, let’s talk about some news—
Schiaparelli featured a robot baby in their newest fashion show. The baby was created from destroyed cell phones. We can always count on Schiaparelli to have a viral moment on the runway. More brands trying to create buzz on social should incorporate some fun props into their show. This reminds me of Frank Ocean’s famous Shrek baby at the Met Gala a few years back.
Psycho Bunny appears to be rebranding. I had seen PB’s awful logo around town before but didn’t really know what the brand was. That was until I was walking through the West Village with a friend and he really wanted to visit the store. I said sure but I’m waiting outside. Basically PB makes polos and oxfords, they’re kind of like Vineyard Vines (do they still make that?) They appear to be scrapping their childish logo for a more refined, grown up look. To be honest, I don’t understand who the Psycho Bunny consumer is so I don’t know whether or not this is good for business.
AI voice generator Eleven Labs reached unicorn status. I’ve heard from some friends in media who swear by Eleven Labs for creating AI generated voiceovers for videos. They’ve received investment from Sequoia Capital, indicating strong industry confidence. I tried using it for a project yesterday and was actually really impressed with the results. The concern here is the use of AI voice generation to replicate real voices to trick people. Apparently there is an AI generated robocall featuring President Biden calling voters in New Hampshire telling them to stay home from today’s primary. Nothing to worry about here.
🚀 Unique Ways to Crush Short Form Video
Short form video is by far the fastest way to grow your audience as a creator or brand. The beauty of it is that there are so many interesting ways to tell your story through short form video. Here is a creator and a brand using simple methods for success on short form video and how you can replicate it—
Show Your Process
Richie Talboy is a fashion photographer who has worked on some major editorial spreads. He’s also a Photoshop pro, taking his shots to the next level with some clever editing. I loved his most recent shoot for Vacuum, which features a model on a sunset beach collaged with pieces of trash. The juxtaposition between the beautiful sunset beach and the trash is alluring.
Richie posted images from this shoot on his IG, but he took it step further, including a short Reel showing his editing process for the photos. Its fast, simple, and shows his process as a creator.
If you’re a photographer, designer, video editor, or any other creator, showing your design or editing process alongside the finished product is a fantastic way to show BTS and give insights into your creative process. To do this, just screen record your edit and chop it down to the most important parts, overlaying voiceover or text to describe your decision making process. Literally anyone can do this, and its a simple way to create content out of something you’re already doing.
The Aesthetic Single Frame
Making compelling short form video doesn’t always require an insane edit and a ton of clips and angles. Most of the time you just need an interesting subject matter, an aesthetic background, and great composition.
Koncrete Space is a coffee shop with an extremely well designed physical space. They created this two shot Reel highlighting their cold foam Americano and PBJ sandwich pairing.
This minimalist video has 100k+ views on Instagram and shows the power of simplicity. In two shots and one single composition viewers are sold. This works really well when you have a beautiful background (somewhere the audience wants to go) and great looking products, whether that be food, beverage, or anything physical. The unboxing of the sandwich adds some suspense, compelling viewers to watch past the first shot.
More brands should invest time and resources into building out a set or finding an aesthetic space to shoot their content. Focus on the contents of the frame and lean into the simplicity.
I will be doing more deep dives into methods for success on short form video, and trying a few of these methods out myself. The reality is there are so many ways to crush it no matter what you do. This is the most interesting format to be creating content for, and you never know what is going to blow up. I recently had a really simple green screen video on TikTok hit almost 1.6M views.
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Okay that’s all from me today. Have a great day and talk to you all tomorrow.
About the Writer
Jake Bell is a content marketing and creative strategist based in NYC. He specializes in content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.
To learn more about Jake visit www.jb.studio
Have a tip email me jake@jb.studio
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