If you’re looking for a way to boost your IG performance, Trial Reels could be the thing you need.
Instagram first launched Trial Reels last December, providing a means for creators to essentially test whether their Reels will resonate with a broader audience, before sharing them to everyone in the app.
As you can see in this example sequence, Trial Reels are shown to a selection of users who don’t follow your profile, which can give you early insight into the likely performance of your Reel.
Which is the key consideration: Trial Reels are not displayed to your followers, either in the main Feed or via the Reels tab.
The idea is that this will give you an unbiased assessment of content quality (without your friends and family skewing the data), while at the same time, it can also help you reach a broader audience by exposing your content to more people who you aren’t connected to in the app.
Which some creators are now using as a growth hack.
Because your Trial Reels are only displayed to people who don’t follow you, you can use this to re-post your older Reels as well, which can help you get more value out of your existing content.
Instagram doesn’t (seemingly) have a problem with this, and it could be a means to maximize your content efforts, while also ensuring more reach. Which, of course, everybody wants.
So what do you need to qualify for Trial Reels?
Late last week, IG chief Adam Mosseri confirmed that Trial Reels are now available to all creators with at least 1,000 followers and an account set to “Public.”
If you meet these criteria, you’ll be able to select Trial Reels within the Reels composer, via the toggle at the top of the detail screen.
As per IG:
“Before sharing, tap the toggle to turn on ‘Trial’. After sharing your trial reel, you can find it by visiting your profile where it will appear alongside any drafts you have. Only you will be able to see that your reel is a trial. Only you will be able to see that your reel is a trial. It will not be shown to other people on your profile unless you later decide to share it with everyone, and your followers won’t see the trial reel in their feed or Reels tab.”
Around 24 hours after launching your trial, you’ll be able to view key engagement metrics for your clip, including views, likes, comments and shares, so you can get a sense of how it’s performing. You’ll also be able to see comparative insights against your previous trials.
It could be a valuable consideration, providing an actual means to get more reach for your Reels content in the app, among users who you’re not connected to. For free.
Meta doesn’t tend to allow free reach like this for long, so it may close this loophole at some stage. But right now, it could be a worthy consideration for your strategy.
