Looking to add Reels into your Facebook and Instagram marketing strategy for the upcoming holiday season?

Latching onto the broader short-video trend, Reels is now Meta’s fastest-growing content surface, and has quickly become a valuable means to help boost exposure and reach for many creators and brands.

If you can get it right.

Like all social media options, there is an opportunity for big exposure, but boring, overly promotional or highly scripted Reels generally don’t do as well, and it takes a level of creative nous and understanding to ensure that your Reels content resonates with your target user communities.

So how can you maximize your Reels approach?

This week, Meta has published a new set of Reels tips, based on advice from creators @coconutandbliss, @gourmetemperor, @Olinhli, and @BradBoy‘s, who have all generated significant results from their reels efforts.

Meta has summarized their key tips into a listing of 8 key points:

Some of these notes are fairly generic, but they could help to give you some additional guidance for your Reels efforts.

Among the key pointers – summarizing your longer videos into shorter clips:

“We use reels as highlight clips of popular videos to promote our page and our content.” – @Bradboy

This is a relatively low effort way to create Reels clips, and Meta has added new editing tools to Creator Studio for just this purpose. It could be an easy way to try out Reels, while also promoting your longer video assets.

“To earn love and support from the audience, each and every of my videos needs to bring in a story that is relatable. If they feel connected, they stick around.” – @Olinhli.

Understanding what works for your audience, and what they want to see from your business, is key to creating resonant content, and Reels could provide a new opportunity to establish stronger relationships with your audience through engaging, personal content.

Research your audience and their related interests, get a feel for how they use your products, then iterate on that.

“I pull out one or two seconds of each scene when I edit, and then I join them together. This eliminates repetitive or unnecessary shots.” – @gourmetemperor

The rapid pace of Reels means that you need to lean into more snappy edits, and this tip could help to streamline your content flow, by eliminating unnecessary repetition.

It’s somewhat similar to Stephen King’s editing advice:

“In the spring of my senior year at Lisbon High – 1966, this would have been – I got a scribbled comment that changed the way I rewrote my fiction once and forever. Jotted below the machine-generated signature of the editor was this mot: “Not bad, but PUFFY. You need to revise for length. Formula: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. Good luck.”

Distilling your content down to its essence can make it more compelling, which is even more true in short-form video content.

Another key tip relates to consistency, with one creator noting that they post Reels around five times a week. You may not need, or want to post that much, but it could give you some idea of how often others are posting to help build an audience.

These are some handy notes, which could help you formulate your own Reels strategy – and with short-form video consumption continuing to rise, it’s worth considering, at the least, as part of your end of year push.

You can read Meta’s full Reels advice post here.