16:58Build Your Tribe · Tutorial
Instagram Reels Tutorial 2026: How I Actually Edit My Posts
A 17-minute system breakdown from a creator who posts 5+ Reels a day and edits them in under 20 minutes.
June 4thThe argument in one line.
AI can automate every stage of the short-form video production pipeline except the two things it genuinely cannot replace: creative taste in what to steal from competitors and physical presence on camera.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- You are already creating Instagram Reels or TikToks and want to increase output without adding hours to your workflow.
- You use Claude or another LLM for scriptwriting but keep getting generic repetitive-sounding results because you prompt from scratch.
- You are comfortable with Claude Code or willing to learn a zero-coding setup for content automation.
- You want a system where AI handles overnight grunt work so you wake up to a list of ready-to-film scripts.
SKIP IF…
- You have never posted short-form video and do not yet have a defined niche or audience.
- You want a fully hands-off no-camera solution. This workflow explicitly requires you to film yourself.
The full version, fast.
Most creators use AI wrong for scriptwriting. They prompt from scratch and get cookie-cutter outputs. The fix is a live inspiration feed: a public saved folder on Instagram or TikTok that Claude monitors automatically. Claude analyzes those saved posts through Poppy AI, extracting style, format, pace, and visual structure to generate niche-specific script ideas overnight. You then pick the ones you like, rewrite in your voice, film, and hand the raw footage to Claude Code plus Remotion for editing. Claude Cowork writes the caption and schedules the post. The system compounds because Claude learns from your edits each cycle, requiring less intervention over time.
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00:00 – 01:50
01 · Hook + promise
Bold hook: entire Reels pipeline without leaving Claude. Sets up five steps, no coding required. Includes subscribe CTA.
01:50 – 03:12
02 · The AI/human split
Core thesis: AI handles automation and speed, humans supply taste and creativity. iPhone size reversal analogy explains why AI cannot originate breakthrough ideas.
03:12 – 04:26
03 · Pre-step: Build your inspiration folder
Create a public saved folder on Instagram or TikTok. Must be public for Claude to access without browser login. This becomes the live feed the system runs on.
04:26 – 06:24
04 · Step 1: Collect and analyze saved posts
Three options: manual download via reelsvideo.io (free), Poppy AI (paid, recommended), or custom code. Claude Cowork runs this on automated daily or weekly schedule.
06:24 – 08:47
05 · Step 2: Scriptwriting with context
Claude generates niche-specific scripts from analyzed posts. Key instruction: analyze style, format, pace, and visual content, not just the transcription. Runs overnight and delivers a list of ready-to-film ideas each morning.
08:47 – 10:19
06 · Sponsor: Shopify
Shopify sponsorship via emotional what-if founder story bridge. $1/month trial at shopify.com/tribe.
10:19 – 12:13
07 · Step 3: Human review and filming
Human picks preferred scripts, rewrites in own voice, and films. No AI clones. Optional advanced loop: feed edits back to Claude to teach it your style.
12:13 – 14:24
08 · Step 4: Editing with Claude Code + Remotion
Paste Remotion init code into Claude Code and describe desired output. Host tested on a complex reel with good results and minor corrections needed. Handles talking-head, b-roll, split screen formats.
14:24 – 15:49
09 · Step 5: Caption and scheduling
Claude Cowork writes caption then drives scheduling tool to paste it and schedule at optimized time.
15:49 – 16:20
10 · Recap + outro
Human touch points: initial inspiration, taste-based selection, filming, final approvals. Claude handles everything else. System learns and improves over time.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- AI generates generic scripts when prompted from scratch. Feeding it a live inspiration folder of real posts breaks that pattern.
- Analyzing a competitor post for format, pacing, and visual structure produces better script inspiration than transcribing their words.
- A public saved folder on Instagram lets Claude autonomously access your inspiration collection without needing browser login.
- Poppy AI gives Claude visual eyeballs on video content so it can analyze what is on screen, not just what is spoken.
- Claude Code plus Remotion can handle basic to moderate video editing entirely through natural language instructions.
- The human has exactly two irreplaceable roles in the AI content pipeline: creative taste in selection and physical presence on camera.
- Claude can be trained on your edits over time so each script generation cycle requires less manual rewriting.
- Scheduling tools like Metricool can be driven by Claude Cowork, removing the final manual step from the pipeline.
- Asking AI to be creative within an observed trend produces better outputs than asking it to invent something new.
- The host built this entire automated workflow with zero coding knowledge by describing the system to Claude.
The two things AI cannot do in your content pipeline.
WHAT TO LEARN
Every step of short-form video production except creative judgment and being on camera can now be delegated to an AI agent running on a schedule.
- AI generates cookie-cutter scripts when prompted in isolation. Feeding it a curated live feed of saved posts breaks that pattern by giving it real format, style, and structure to work from.
- Instructing AI to analyze visual structure, pacing, and format rather than just the spoken words produces more useful script inspiration than a transcript summary.
- A public saved folder on Instagram or TikTok is the lowest-friction way to build a living inspiration library that an AI agent can access without any login or authentication headache.
- Video editing through Claude Code and Remotion handles basic to moderate formats such as talking-head, b-roll, and split screen, but complex edits still need manual correction.
- The human role in an AI-assisted content pipeline reduces to three moments: choosing what inspires you, filming the actual video, and approving outputs before they post.
- AI agents trained on your editing corrections improve accuracy over time, meaning the system requires less intervention with each production cycle rather than the same corrections forever.
Terms worth knowing.
- Claude Cowork
- A mode of Claude that can autonomously use tools, browse the web, and control applications on a schedule. Functions as an AI agent that operates your computer while you sleep.
- Remotion
- An open-source framework at remotion.dev for creating and rendering videos programmatically using React. Claude Code can drive it to edit footage through natural language instructions.
- Poppy AI
- A paid tool that can analyze video content visually. Used here as Claude's eyeballs to extract insights from saved Instagram and TikTok posts without manual downloading.
- Claude Code
- Anthropic coding-focused agent that can execute terminal commands, write and run code, and control software. Used here to drive Remotion for video editing.
Things they pointed at.
05:22toolPoppy AI
14:25toolMetricool
14:25toolLater
14:25toolHootsuite
Lines you could clip.
12:13
“Claude code just killed video editors.”
06:34
“Because their prompts suck.”
15:45
“I had Claude build all of this for me while I was having lunch in my backyard with my parrot, Yuki.”
08:01
“AI is going to go with the lazy route and just take the transcription of the video, and then base your script off of their script, and you don't want that.”
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
metaphoranalogystory
00:00What if you could go from zero ideas to a fully researched, planned, scripted, filmed, captioned, scheduled, and even posted real all without leaving Claude?
00:11Well, you can. And in today's episode, I'm gonna blow your mind because this is something that I have been using recently, and it is a game changer. And that is not a term that I throw around lightly.
00:20This is truly something that will revolutionize the way that you create content on social media all the way from the initial moment of getting an idea or getting inspired to the final end product of actually pressing post. And maybe best of all, everything that I'm gonna show you in today's episode requires zero ability to code.
00:36Take it from me, whose worst grade in all of college was in intro to computers. And even though there are three tools outside of Claude that I'm going to recommend that you use in conjunction with Claude, you could very easily theoretically do everything that I'm gonna teach you in today's episode without leaving Claude a single time.
00:52And before we hop into these five steps, if you wanna see more videos like this, hit that subscribe button, because I base what videos I make in the future based off what videos get the most subscribes. Not what videos get the most views or engagement, but what videos get people to actually subscribe. So just double check to make sure that you are already subscribed, then we'll get into today's episode.
01:09Let's begin this process where all content ideas begin, which is the idea phase. Getting inspired. Coming up with what it is that you're even going to post about in the first place.
01:18And I think it's important to say from the very beginning of today's episode that while a lot of this can be done with AI, and AI is a really really powerful tool for automating and systematizing parts of your workflow, and it can really speed up parts of your process, there are some things that I think you cannot or maybe should not try to replace with AI.
01:34And I think that your own personality, your own preferences, your own taste, are things that you should not try to replace with AI. Because the reality is, as it currently stands, AI is just not as creative as us humans are. And one of my favorite analogies that I recently heard about this topic was about smartphones prior to the iPhone coming out.
01:52If you remember back in the mid two thousands before the first iPhone launched, phones were getting smaller and smaller and smaller. I remember I had this one phone called a Samsung Juke that was about the same size as a kitchen butter knife. But then in 2008, the iPhone came out, and ever since then, it seems like phones have been getting bigger and bigger and bigger until recently where they've been kind of getting a little bit smaller.
02:11But for the most part for the last decade plus, they've been getting bigger and bigger and bigger. But if you could wave a magic wand and have access to ChattyBT or Claw back in 2007, before that first iPhone came out, and asked it to be creative and come up with the next phone, it would probably just come up with another phone that was even smaller than the Samsung Juke.
02:28I think that humans are far more creative than AI, and they're able to see the bigger picture and see, hey, phones keep getting smaller and smaller and smaller. So what if we flip the script and started making them bigger, and that would really grab people's attention and revolutionize the market. But I digress.
02:41Enough talking about smartphone sizes. I say all of this to just say that it's your own taste as you scroll through your feed that is going to allow you to be uniquely inspired deciding what it is that you want to create.
02:53Of course, sometimes ideas just strike me while I'm in the shower, or sitting at a red light, or on a walk, or reading a book, or listening to a podcast. But more often than not, the inspiration for my content comes from what I'm seeing other content creators make. I'm seeing a great idea from the fitness niche, and I'm thinking, how could I apply that to Instagram coaching?
03:12Or I'm seeing a snowboarding video, and I'm thinking, that was a great hook. How could I fit that into my niche? Or even I'm seeing one of my competitors who's also in my niche making a post, and I'm thinking, hey, what are my tips for that topic?
03:23How could I teach that thing that they're trying to teach? And so the first thing that I'm gonna recommend you do, and I guess this is even before step one of getting into Claude, is I want you to create a public saved folder on Instagram or a public saved collection on TikTok.
03:38And I should actually pause right here and say it has to be public if you want Claude to easily be able to access it at any time. Of course, the downside there is that anyone else on the Internet, anyone else on Instagram or TikTok can find this saved folder. If you make it private, then basically you just have to make sure that Claude has access to that, let's say, Instagram account and is logged in and can control your browser in order to get to that private saved folder.
04:02But basically, a saved folder or a saved collection where you will begin storing post ideas. So that from now on, as you're scrolling through your feed, as you're getting inspired, as you're seeing posts that you want to remake, or a great format that you want to use as inspiration, save them to this folder.
04:19And now, let's get into step one where we're actually going to start using Claude. Step number one is to have Claude Cowork collect, analyze, and summarize the ideas that you're saving into this post ideas folder.
04:31And in order to do this, there are three options. Option number one requires the most effort on your part, but it's free. Option number two is the most expensive, but requires the least effort on your part.
04:41And option number three is the one that's probably the most technical and might cost a little bit. It's kind of a mixed bag. Option number one, the free option that's a little bit more work is downloading each of the videos that is in that folder.
04:52If you're on Instagram, could use a site like reelsvideo.io in order to download the reel right off of Instagram, and then you can upload the file into Claude, and that gives Claude the ability to analyze the content.
05:05Option number two is to use a tool like Poppy, which is the first additional tool that I'm gonna recommend for you today, which does cost money, but the benefit is that it has the ability to analyze content for you. So Claude can essentially drive Poppy or in order to analyze content.
05:23So yes, that one costs money, but it doesn't cost as much time. And then option number three is to use a proprietary or custom built code that allows Claude to basically see your content. And there's a few of these that are floating around on the Internet.
05:35I haven't really used any myself, and so there's none that I'm going to recommend. The way that I prefer to go about this is to use Poppy AI as the eyeballs for my Claude. But that's because I really value the time, energy, and effort saved by allowing Claude to run Poppy for me, instead of having to download each reel.
05:50The other reason that I like to use Poppy AI is that I can have Claude co work do this on an automated schedule. So let's say, once a week, it can go to this saved folder on my Instagram. It can grab the links to each of those reels that I have saved, it can put the links to all of those reels into Poppy, and then Poppy can analyze them all for me, and it's doing all this while I sleep.
06:10But then, once you've either downloaded all of the videos and had Claude analyze them, or had Claude put them on Poppy AI in order to analyze them. That brings us to step two, is the actual script writing process. And of course, this is what most people are using generative AI for already, writing the actual scripts for your content.
06:26But the problem is, most people are getting cookie cutter, lame, boring, repetitive sounding, clearly AI generated scripts, because their prompts suck.
06:36Or if they do have really good prompts, they are only as good as their prompts are, and so they're constantly having to refine, and tweak, and improve their prompts. But with the workflow that I'm setting up for you right now, you don't have to do that work yourself. You can instead let the ideas, let the inspiration, let the posts that other people have made inspire and inform your prompting, you will.
07:00Or I guess more accurately to say, they inspire and inform the scripts and the outlines and the ideas that Claude is coming up with for you. So the exact steps of the workflow that I use is that once a day, Claude Cowork opens the saved folder that I have on my Instagram.
07:16It then goes through and collects any new links that have been added within the last twenty four hours. Then it pastes those links into my Poppy board and connects all of them to a singular unified chat. This chat is an AI chat inside Poppy that, yes, runs on Claude as well.
07:32And that Claude AI window inside of Poppy is using all of those links to inform its output. And you can customize this prompt however you like, but mine essentially says, use these ideas to come up with scripts, outlines, and post ideas that fit for my niche.
07:48And then I have a really detailed document explaining what my niche is, who my ideal follower or customer is, and kinds of things that I post about. And then the prompt simply ends by saying, pay careful attention to the style, format, pace, and visual content, not just the words being said.
08:03Because oftentimes, AI is going to go with the lazy route and just take the transcription of the video, and then base your script off of their script, and you don't want that. You want the actual content to be analyzed. You want what's on the screen to be analyzed.
08:15You want the format or the style to be analyzed, because it's oftentimes those things that make posts go viral, not just the scripts or the words being said. But again, all this is being done for me while I sleep, so that when I wake up each morning, I have an entire list of content ideas that are specific for me, and yet inspired by the post that inspired me the day before.
08:36Back in 2016, when I started my first real online business, I remember that my head was filled with so many what ifs. What if no one buys this? What if I'm an impostor?
08:47What if there's no market? What if I can't sell? What if what if what if?
08:51What if this is all just a big waste of time and I'm just banging my head against the wall? But what I wish someone told me back then is just like you can imagine all the negative what ifs, there are just as many if not more positive what ifs. What if this works out?
09:05What if this is my breakthrough? What if this is what sets me financially free? And thanks to one of today's sponsors, Shopify, it's easier than ever to turn those positive what ifs into reality.
09:15Shopify is the ecommerce platform behind millions of businesses around the world, and it now represents about 10% of the entire ecommerce market in The US. From some of the most famous and well known brands in the world, like Gymshark, to solopreneurs, Shopify has you covered.
09:30Shopify helps you get the word out about your ecommerce business as if you had an entire marketing team behind you. It easily helps you create email and social campaigns so that you can attract customers wherever they're scrolling. And if you ever get stuck, Shopify has twenty four seven round the clock award winning customer support.
09:47That way, you can tackle the important tasks from inventory to payments to analytics all in one place. No need to bookmark multiple websites and sign up for multiple tools, you can do it all in Shopify. It makes your life easier and it makes your business operations run smoother.
10:01It's time to turn those what ifs into with Shopify today. Sign up for your $1 per month trial at shopify.com/tribe.
10:11Go to shopify.com/tribe. That's shopif.com/tribe. This brings us to step number three, which is going to take us out of Claude and into the real world, where you as a human being are going to read through these scripts and these ideas and these outlines, and you're going to use your own personality, your own taste, and your own preferences to pick out the ones that you like, and to reformat them, to rescript them, to change words, to say things how you actually would, because even the best AI prompt is not going to be perfect.
10:46Now, if you really wanted to get advanced, you could theoretically take your rewritten scripts or your modified outputs, give them back to Claude within this Poppy window, and tell it to learn from the changes that you made. That's only for those of you who really wanna go above and beyond and get an a plus.
11:02But also part of step three is to actually create the content. I am not a fan of AI clones. I am not a fan of AI robot generated fake people who are replacing real people.
11:13That's not my thing. I don't like that. I'm not a fan of that.
11:15That is a firm line that I've drawn in the sand that I will not cross. And so you could I mean, I guess, like, everyone, it's up to you what you wanna do. You could theoretically create an AI clone and have it record these or recreate these reels for you, but that's not what I recommend.
11:32What I would recommend is that once you pick out the ideas that you like, once you pick out the scripts and the outlines that you actually prefer, that you then go and record them yourself. You gotta do the work of actually sitting your butt down, hitting record on that camera, and saying what you gotta say. But then we can go back into Claude for step number four, the actual editing process.
11:52And this one is so flipping cool unless you are a short form video editor, because Claude code just killed video editors. Now, that's definitely a sensationalized thing to say, and there's definitely still a market for being a video editor, and video editors can definitely still enhance content, and they definitely still have unique taste and personality.
12:08I'm not getting rid of my video editors, but for basic content or for basic edits, you can have it done for you automatically using Claude code, and a very easy to use plugin called Remotion that's so easy to use, you actually don't even have to use it.
12:23Claude code will use it for you. This is 100 not sponsored in any way. All you have to do is go to remotion.dev and copy that code that's right there on their homepage, and then paste that into Claude code, and it will ask you a few questions, and go through a few prompts to get authorization in order to use Remotion.
12:41But then, what you're able to do is tell Claude code to access any file or files, basically the raw videos from that reel that you just filmed, and tell it what you want the final output to look like. In an experiment, when I was first setting all this up, I had my Claude code with Remotion edit a reel that was very technically complex.
13:01Like a reel that if I was going to ask a human elder to edit, would probably require multiple paragraphs of explanation. And in fact, I wrote out multiple paragraphs of explanation that I was planning on giving to my human elder. But again, as an experiment, I was like, what if I gave this to Claude Code and saw what it could do using Remotion, and it did a pretty dang good job.
13:23Is it perfect? No. It did make a few mistakes, and I corrected them, again, writing Claude code, and it fixed them and made a pretty good final output.
13:31Now, all I have to do is a few minor tweaks, a few minor adjustments to put the final polishing touches on it, and it's ready to go. But if you're doing a yapping video, or a more simple talking head video, or a b roll reel, or a split screen, or really any other kind of reel that isn't some complex advanced format, Remotion and Claude code could definitely handle the editing for you.
13:52And then once the editing is done, you're almost at the finish line. You're almost done with this process. Step number five is to have Claude write the caption and schedule it for you.
14:00Now you could just upload the file to normal Claude and have it write a caption for you based off whatever prompt or whatever instructions you give it, or you could have Claude co work write that caption for you. And then with your approval, or I guess theoretically, without your approval, if you wanted to give it that much control, I wouldn't give it that much control.
14:18But regardless, once it writes the caption for you, it could even drive a k a control a scheduling tool like Metricool or Later or Hootsuite or whatever scheduling tool you use, and then schedule the post for you, paste in the caption that it wrote, and pick a time and date optimized based off the instructions you give it.
14:37So basically, throughout this entire process, you as a human are required for getting initially inspired, using your taste and preferences to decide which of these inspired ideas you're actually going to move forward with. Step number three, of course, you gotta film it yourself.
14:52And then from there, the rest of the process is really just instructions and approvals. Giving instructions for the edit, approving the edit, giving instructions for the caption, approving the caption. And a lot of this is something that you don't have to do over and over again because Claude can learn from you, learn from those instructions, and remember them for future runs of this task.
15:10And like I said at the very beginning, the best part of all is that you do not have to know how to code. I would actually argue you don't even have to know how to set any of this up. You can ask Claude, how do I set this up?
15:21You could give it the transcript of today's episode and tell it that this is the program, this is the automation, this is the workflow that you want to build, and it could then walk you step by step through either doing these things and setting it up itself, or having you intervene if there are a few moments here or there where you maybe need to intervene.
15:41In fact, me with zero coding experience, zero software experience, had Claude build all of this for me and work out this entire workflow while I was having lunch in my backyard with my parrot, Yuki.
15:53I was enjoying some Park City summer sunshine, and Claude co work was building this for me. Thank you so much for watching today, and as always, happy networking.
16:19Hi.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The promise lands before the thumbnail finishes loading: zero ideas to scheduled reel, never leaving Claude. It is the kind of claim that filters out skeptics and converts the curious, and in 16 minutes the host makes a credible case for most of it.
Named ideas worth stealing.
04:26list
The 5-Step Reel Pipeline
- Collect (analyze saved posts)
- Script (Claude generates from analysis)
- Film (human only)
- Edit (Claude Code + Remotion)
- Schedule (Claude Cowork)
End-to-end Reels production workflow where Claude handles steps 1, 2, 4, and 5 while the human handles step 3.
Steal forAny tutorial about AI content workflows. The pipeline structure adapts to YouTube, LinkedIn, or podcasts.
01:50concept
AI/Human Split Rule
Automate process and speed, preserve personality, taste, and physical presence. AI takes automation, systems, and process speed. Human keeps personality, preferences, and taste.
Steal forAny AI productivity pitch. The graphic overlay in frames 0008 and 0009 is the visual version of this framework.
08:01concept
Style-First Prompt Rule
When instructing Claude to analyze competitor content, explicitly say: analyze style, format, pace, and visual content, not just the words being said. Prevents lazy transcription-based outputs.
Steal forAny prompt engineering lesson or AI content creation tutorial.
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
01:08subscribe
“Hit that subscribe button, because I base what videos I make in the future based off what videos get the most subscribes.”
Unusual framing. Subscriber count rather than views or engagement drives content decisions, creating a direct causal link between subscribing and getting more content like this.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
FROM THE DESCRIPTION
PRIMARY CTAWhere the creator wants you to go next.
AFFILIATECommission earned if you click.
OTHER LINKSAlso linked in the description.
Visual structure at a glance.
