[00:03] days to see whether the common tips for going viral are actual growth hacks or just more overhyped strategies that work for a handful of people. So, in this video, I'm going to break down everything that you need to know about
[00:17] trial reels, the basics, how they're intended to be used, where to find them after you've posted them, etc. I'm also going to go over my 15-day trial rails challenge and the challenge results, which honestly surprised me quite a bit,
[00:31] and I'll share with you three main strategies that I believe are worth trying if you want to get into trial reels. As always, timestamps are below. into it. So, what are trial reels? Trial
[00:44] reels are a feature that was added to Instagram back in December 2024. They are a way for you to post content that only gets shown to people who are not following you. This means that you can test new idea types and trial ideas that
[00:59] you might not otherwise share. Instagram said in their December 2024 update that if you've ever found yourself wanting to experiment with new ideas without the worry of how your followers might react, trial reels gives you the freedom to
[01:13] take your creativity even further while helping to take the guesswork out of how your content could perform. While this was their intention when they created it, many creators quickly realized that trial reels were a hack in a way where
[01:28] you could post 20 times a day to reach as many people as possible without annoying your current audience. This led to three main strategies that users were using trial reels for. One is AB testing, where you post multiple
[01:43] variations of one video to see which variation would work the best. I've seen people share that they posted the same video 100 or more times and they would just change the hook text or the audio or the caption and see what happened.
[01:58] Strategy two was to repost your most popular content as trial reels. This something performed well with your current audience, it would be great to share it with new people to attract a similar audience type. And strategy
[02:14] three was just simply kind of double posting every single post. posting whatever you post to your main feed also to your trial reels feed. However, earlier this year, Instagram started cracking down on trial reels to reduce
[02:27] the amount of repetitive content. So, they changed some rules. Rule number one, daily posting limits. When trial reels were first introduced, you could post an unlimited number of trial reels every single day. However, now they're
[02:42] putting limits in place. For most creators, this limit seems to be five trial reels per day, but unfortunately, there's no way to see the exact number of what your limit is. I've heard of people with limits higher than that, but
[02:56] Instagram hasn't like specifically said a number for this limit. Rule number two that they've added is no duplicates. Alongside limiting the number of trial reels that you post each day, Instagram also changed what you can post. So,
[03:10] they're cracking down on duplicate content, which means if you post the same video multiple times without changing anything about it or not enough about it, the duplicates won't get any reach. With this update, they're using
[03:24] AI in their algorithm to see if the videos that you're posting are similar to things that you've shared before. And if it detects repeat content, only the first video will get the views or reach. So now the potential for repeat videos
[03:39] to go viral will be significantly limited. To post a trial reel, simply open Instagram and create a new reel like normal. The only thing that you're going to change is when you're posting, you're going to post it as a trial reel.
[03:53] With trial reels, you can post or schedule these reels like you would your regular content. After a trial reel has been posted, simply go to your profile, go to your reels tab, and kind of like where drafts are, this is where your
[04:09] trial reels will be saved. So, now that we've done a basic overview of trial reels, the basics, the need to knows, let's get into our trial reels challenge. Given these new rules about trial reels, my team and I wanted to
[04:23] find out what's still working with this feature. So, we created our own Trial Rails challenge to test the most popular strategies out there while also trying to follow the new rules Instagram has put in place. Basically, to see if you
[04:38] can grow on Instagram using trial reels without spamming the feed as much as for me, I wanted to run this test because I feel like so many people
[04:50] market trial reels as like this viral growth hack and they hide their strategies behind a payw wall. And I'm like, okay, let's figure this out. Is trial reels really some viral growth hack that we're just not tapping into?
[05:05] So, we set our own rules for this challenge. The rules are we can't post challenge. The rules are we can't post more than five trial reels per day. We need to change something about each reel we post. And we'll run multiple
[05:19] different types of AB tests to figure out exactly how much do you need to change about a video for it to be counted as like new content on Instagram. So, if you're wondering how the heck did we manage all of this 75
[05:34] videos, pieces of content in 15 days is crazy because that's typically for me more than two months worth of content. So, what helped was one, I have a whole folder with B-roll that I've created over the past few years. So, I actually
[05:49] didn't film any new content for this. We simply just used clips from my B-roll folder and repurpose them to new content. Two, Justin. Justin's been on my team since 2022, and without her, this video would not exist. So, comment,
[06:04] "We love you, Justin," as a huge thank you for her basically running this challenge for me. And three, to help us come up with 75 different video ideas in a short amount of time, we used the Stanley app. Because when you're trying
[06:17] to test trial reels strategically, you want to figure out which hooks are actually speaking to new people at this moment. What content formats are worth testing? And how can we create different versions of a reel without just like
[06:31] right now there's a lot of misinformation about trial reels. And maybe not misinformation, but outdated information where people are putting old
[06:43] tried andrue hacks behind a payw wall, promising that specific hooks will make you go viral when in reality those hooks are probably like months or years old social media right now. So, let's talk about the challenge results. We talked
[06:58] about how we approached this challenge. So, let's see what happened. So, over the course of 15 days, we posted over 70 reels. 61 of those reels were B-roll
[07:10] style videos with audio. You know, the standard B-roll with audio. Nine were repurposed talking head videos where I'm talking to the camera. Two were voiceovers, and two were actually created by people on my team. Now, the
[07:25] end of the challenge. We finished the challenge with a total of 2593 challenge with a total of 2593 followers, which averaged about to be 172 followers a day. We received a total of 186,000 views total across our
[07:40] videos, which brought our average view per video to 2500 views. But if we don't include like the viral videos or the videos that went viral during that time, our average view count per video was 1,300 views per video. An interesting
[07:56] stat was about 50% or half of the videos that we posted as reposts, so they were organic first and we just posted as a trial reel, 50% of them ended up getting flagged as duplicate content and we received notifications from Instagram
[08:12] that their reach would be limited. So, we have like a whole spreadsheet with all of our data and instead of just like blleh shouting numbers at you, I want to takeaways that I got from this challenge. And then I also want to share
[08:24] with you the three strategies that I would recommend if you want to test out trial reels yourself. So the two biggest takeaways, my first takeaway is trial takeaways, my first takeaway is trial reels is not a simple instant growth
[08:38] hack that people claim that they are or some people claim that they are. We some people claim that they are. We watched so many trial reels expert tips videos. We tried to learn from them. We used their golden hook strategies or
[08:51] viral hook strategies and we applied everything that we could learn from other people to guarantee virality. And honestly, it just it didn't do much. Basically, this golden hook strategy is when you put a like proven hook on
[09:05] screen, pair that with a 5 to 7se secondond B-roll clip and then trending audio and bam, you're guaranteed to bring in an insane amount of views or followers. This is a list of all the golden hooks that we use. I don't know
[09:18] pointing everywhere. And none of these produced like viral spikes on any of the reels that used them. Now, I will say I will say it was the most reliable format
[09:32] for follower conversion relative to views. Meaning, we gained when we used the golden hook strategy, we gained roughly four to nine new followers per
[09:44] roughly four to nine new followers per 1,000 views on videos that used this golden hook, which I guess in the grand scheme of things, 4 to nine new followers is still better than zero. So, like, yes, it did bring in like a
[09:56] consistent small amount of followers, but it wasn't like this viral growth hack that I was expecting based off of how it's positioned and marketed. But when you compare those videos to the ones that did go viral, what's
[10:09] interesting is the ones that did go viral didn't even use the golden hook videos did go viral in a second cuz I want to go back to my takeaway of like this wasn't some simple instant growth hack, right? Because to be completely
[10:22] transparent, we had plenty of videos that just like flopped. Like this video is still sitting at eight views after being up for a few weeks and this video has only 30 views and it wasn't suppressed by the algorithm for being a
[10:37] duplicate or anything. Both of those videos were fresh pieces of content that we created for this challenge. So, while we did see growth through the challenge, if you've been told that trial reels are some hack or guaranteed way to explode
[10:52] to be completely transparent with you. That's not what we found. I'm sure if we took everything that we learned from this challenge and then did another 15-day challenge where we like applied what we learned and were more
[11:05] intentional with what we posted, I'm sure we could get better results. But, realistically. An everyday Instagram user like yourself likely doesn't have user like yourself likely doesn't have the capacity to create 75 videos in 15
[11:18] days to gather this data to tell you what's going to work so that you could eventually use it as a growth hack. You know what I mean? So that was my first takeaway. My second takeaway was more volume doesn't mean more followers. I
[11:32] hear people teaching about trial reels is like keep posting different variation as many different variations of a video as possible. And even though we posted as possible. And even though we posted 75 76 videos and gained 2600 followers,
[11:47] 90% of those new followers came from only two of the videos that we posted. So only two out of the 70 plus videos we posted brought in a significant amount of followers. And surprisingly, both of those videos were reposts, meaning that
[12:03] organically first, saw that they performed well and resonated with my audience, and then decided to repost as a trial reel to reach a new audience, but similar audience type to my own. Not only that, but both of the viral videos
[12:19] that got us followers were talking head videos. They weren't the B-roll style videos that so many people say pop off and give you viral followers. Like, they were me talking to the camera and giving tips and value. So, just because you
[12:34] post a lot and you like spam trial reels like crazy, that doesn't mean you're going to get more followers. Instead, we found less specific valuebased videos. Those ones were the ones that performed well with followers. So, with all that
[12:48] said, what can you take away from this experiment that we did? And what can you put to use for your trial reels best practices moving forward? Now, if you've learned something new so far, I just want to ask if you could give this video
[13:02] YouTube that other creators like yourself might find this video helpful or valuable. And if you walk away learning two new things from this video, just consider subscribing since it's a simple way to support me and my channel
[13:16] free content like this for you every single week. So, the three ways that you can grow on Instagram using trial reels in my opinion. One, reposting content
[13:29] that's already bringing you the results you want to see. For example, if your goal is to get more followers, go to your analytics, check to see of the videos that you're posting, which one brought you the most followers, repost
[13:41] that video. If your goal is to get more views, go to your analytics, see which videos that you're posting organically are getting you the most views, try reposting those videos. Now, I say this with like an asterisk. Is that the right
[13:54] word? Asterisk. Because I know I literally just said 50% of our reposts were flagged by Instagram and said they wouldn't get reach. So we're going to make a little tweak adjustment to this strategy. Instead of just directly
[14:07] reposting these videos to our trial reels, ideally you have the original organically posted, you have the original video. You likely edited it. So I would try to change something about the video within the first 3 seconds.
[14:22] something simple, nothing too drastic because it performed well organically. You probably have a really good hook layering strategy of the video already. So, I would change something like the font or mirroring your clip so you're
[14:37] facing another way. Some people say you could even like speed up your clip a little bit. That way, it could decrease the chances of it getting flagged by Instagram. The reason I say to still repost organic content that's worked
[14:51] well to your trial reels is because this worked. This was the only strategy that worked really well for us and brought in that viral peak. How this might look for that viral peak. How this might look for myself is instead of posting a bunch of
[15:06] AB tests five times a day, we would be shifting our trial re strategy to just repurposing one to two already proven pieces of content each week to trial pieces of content each week to trial reels. And we would try to wait a month
[15:20] or two months after that organic piece has already been live before repurposing to breathe. The other thing we would check off is the ones we are repurposing, we would make sure it is always paired with a Many Chat call to
[15:34] action because something we also noticed was that our Many Chat call to action videos did help, I think, with the virality of our top two videos because it brought in a lot of engagement and comments. And personally for my team, it
[15:48] brought us new leads into like our ecosystem for which us is a huge goal. The second growth strategy that you could try is running AB tests. Now, this is something I say again with an asterisk. If you have the capacity and
[16:03] you want to post a few different variations of one video idea that you have, do it. We did have some success with our AB tests. And I've actually have students in the BSP model that have had success with AB testing hooks that
[16:18] call out their target audience. When you're running your AB tests, in order to avoid being flagged as duplicate content, you need to at least change two of the following things. The hook text or the text on screen, the video itself,
[16:35] swap the entire video or the order of the videos, the caption, and the music. So, two of those have to be changing for each AB test. When we did our challenge,
[16:48] we tried changing just like one of those elements. And if we changed only one of those things, it was still flagged as duplicate content. Ideally, when running these AB tests, you're trying to be as intentional as possible with the hook
[17:01] text. Some ways you could do this is calling out your target audience in the hook text. So, if you're a content creator, right, calling out that target audience or calling out a feeling your target audience has. So if you feel
[17:15] overwhelmed by all the social media advice and you have decision fatigue, d d d d d so that's a feeling or something that they might struggle with a pain point you could call out a goal in the text. So if you want to be a
[17:28] in the text. So if you want to be a full-time content creator then duh or even like I had said calling out a feeling. So if you feel overwhelmed call it a painoint in general. So if your reels keep flopping do this instead. So,
[17:41] there's a few different ways that you could use hook text on short videos to help you talk specifically to the people that you want to reach with trial reels. fingers crossed. Let's hope Instagram shows it to the right people. Now, I
[17:57] want to help your trial reels when doing AB tests perform even better, right? So, hook text that you could change when doing this and being intentional with that. But also something that we found was when you use any sort of social
[18:12] proof on screen, anything from like screenshots, testimonials, or real your camera roll of what you're posting about and talking about, maybe it's sitting in your DMs, people messaging you, that is some of the most valuable
[18:27] content that you could be using. For example, instead of me saying, "If you're a content creator that wants to land thousand brand deals, blah blah saying like, "Hey, do you want to land brand deals?" I'm going to show
[18:41] screenshot proofs of either testimonials of students saying, "Oh my gosh, I just figure collab." Like, I'm going to use that social proof screenshot on the screen. or even just like screenshot of income statements from brands that have
[18:57] paid me personally and positions me as like, hey, I know how to do this. Using any sort of social proof screenshotted on the screen, that's going to help those trial rails perform even better. And the third tip or strategy is to
[19:10] experiment with new types of content. Now, this is one piece of advice that I don't see many coaches give about trial reels. And it feels radical to say this, but I want you to use trial reels the way they were intended.
[19:25] way they were intended. Try new content types and experiment. Try talking to the camera, voiceover videos, B-roll, lip-syncing, green should be happening organically in your content to your followers, too. but also
[19:39] used. Like if you're a travel creator and you post about travel, but recently you've been feeling this pull to create like meals or videos about food, but you're not sure if your followers will like it. Like test it with trial reels.
[19:53] Test to see what works well for you. Unpopular opinion, but trial reels don't have to be a growth hack like everyone advertises it to be. It could simply be
[20:05] advertises it to be. It could simply be what it was intended to be, a tool, a resource, a place for you to test and experiment new content ideas with a fresh audience and see how those ideas perform. Now, if you're somebody who
[20:18] really does want to see real Instagram growth by following like a proven framework of like, okay, if I just follow XYZ steps, I know I could hit 10,000 followers or more on Instagram. If that's you, I want to invite you to
[20:32] join my Ivy League for creators. It is the BSP model. It is my Pride and Joy signature offer that I am so incredibly proud of. It's basically a university
[20:45] for content creators with over 10 courses and they are placed in order for you to follow. So, you could go from zero followers or zero social media experience to full-time content creator and making a full-time income. I've had
[20:59] so many students see great results by following this road map that I've tested with myself and other students. And so if that's you and you do want to be full-time content creator, I just want to invite you to the BSP model and our
[21:12] BSP Slack community. When it comes to trial reels on Instagram right now, while I can't promise you virality for using the tips that I shared in this video, I can promise you that the more that you post, the more that you learn.
[21:25] And learning honestly is more valuable than followers, right? Is that cheesy? Do I sound like Bill Nye the Science Guy by saying that? I don't know. Anyway, video. I will see you in the next one. Follow your joy. Bye.