22:03Build Your Tribe · Listicle
16 Easy Instagram Reels that are Proven to Go Viral
A 22-minute listicle that hands you 16 plug-and-play Reel formats — no creativity required, just execution.
April 27thThe argument in one line.
Reels stall because of weak content and a cold audience, not a hostile algorithm, so the fix is better research up front plus a deliberate sequence of human engagement around the moment you post.
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
- An Instagram creator stuck in 200, 1,000 or 5,000 view jail who suspects a shadow ban and wants something concrete to try instead.
- A small business owner with a launch, sale or promotion post that has to get seen and wants a repeatable pre and post routine.
- Someone who already posts reels but never touches settings like location, music, auto-dubbing or Also Share On.
- A creator curious how stories, DM keyword automations and deep links can feed views back into a single reel.
SKIP IF…
- You want a daily posting system; the creator says this full routine is only for the posts that really matter.
- You are looking for TikTok or YouTube Shorts tactics; nearly every step here is Instagram-specific.
- You want a deep dive on ManyChat or DM automation setup; it is mentioned in the final step and deferred to a future episode.
The full version, fast.
Low reel views are a content and audience problem, not proof that the algorithm hates you. The checklist starts with research: pick five favorite accounts, pull their outlier posts with a tool like Poppy AI, break down format, topic and hook, then make your own version. Before posting, delete active stories and spend ten minutes leaving real comments and DM replies for engaged mutuals and mid-size niche accounts. Post with a location, quiet instrumental music, auto-dubbing, Also Share On, strong Wi-Fi, captions and a hook-plus-CTA caption. Afterward, pin a comment, reply to everything with follow-up questions, like comments on old posts, cross-promote on owned channels, clear your DMs, then prime your story and share the reel or a keyword DM deep link.
Free for members
Chat with this breakdown — free.
Sign in and you get 23 free chat messages on us — ask for the hook, quote a framework, find the exact transcript moment, generate a markdown action plan. Bring your own key when you want unlimited.
Create a free account →Where the time goes.
00:00 – 01:25
01 · Stop blaming the algorithm
Sets up the 11-step checklist and argues that good, engaging content gets views; there is no shadow ban.
01:25 – 05:15
02 · Step 1: Create the post from outliers
Pick five favorite accounts, pull their outliers with Poppy AI, dissect format, topic and hook, then make your own version, ideally from outside your niche.
05:15 – 06:01
03 · Step 2: Delete your current stories
Reset active stories before posting so they can be used to amplify the new reel later.
06:01 – 09:10
04 · Step 3: Ten minutes of real engagement
Leave meaningful comments and DM replies for mutuals who regularly engage; this works through reciprocity, not the algorithm.
09:10 – 10:38
05 · Sponsor: Momentous creatine
A John Mulaney bit leads into a read for Momentous Signature Spec Creatine, code BYT.
10:38 – 11:43
06 · Step 3 cont.: A seat at the table
Comment thoughtfully on mid-size accounts in your niche without plugging your own reel.
11:43 – 16:15
07 · Step 4: Post with the right settings
Location, quiet instrumental music, auto translation and dubbing, Also Share On, strong Wi-Fi, closed captions and a hook-plus-CTA caption.
16:15 – 17:08
08 · Step 5: Pin a comment
Pin your own comment to add context, ask a question, clarify, or land a joke or GIF.
17:08 – 19:40
09 · Step 6: Respond to every comment
The tennis and coffee shop analogies: return every comment with equal energy and a follow-up question, for hours.
19:40 – 21:45
10 · Sponsor: Keeper password manager
A family account-hacking story that cost a quarter million followers leads into a Keeper read.
21:45 – 22:52
11 · Step 7: Like comments on old posts
Go back through recent posts, answer anything missed and like every comment so engaged followers get notified.
22:52 – 24:10
12 · Step 8: Cross-promote on owned channels
Share the reel where short-form video can't live natively: email, newsletter, Discord, broadcast channel.
24:10 – 25:05
13 · Step 9: Reignite your DMs
Reply to every unanswered DM and add follow-ups so recent engagers are more likely to see the new post.
25:05 – 26:00
14 · Step 10: Prime your story
Post one or two text-heavy stories that introduce the reel's topic to an audience that only partly overlaps with reel viewers.
26:00 – 30:31
15 · Step 11: Share the reel or a DM deep link
Easy path: share the reel to your story with context. Technical path: a keyword story reply triggers a ManyChat DM containing a deep link to the reel.
Lines worth screenshotting.
- You are not shadow banned; when good, engaging content gets made, it gets views.
- The 11-step routine is for the posts that matter most, not something to run every time you post.
- Studying outlier posts from accounts outside your niche keeps you from becoming a parrot of your own industry.
- Spending ten minutes engaging before you post earns no algorithmic boost; the payoff is human reciprocity.
- A two-sentence DM or a multi-sentence comment gets noticed and reciprocated far more than a like or a repost.
- The best people to engage before posting are mutuals who already regularly comment on your content.
- Commenting on a bigger creator's post to plug your own reel is siphoning, and it reads as tacky.
- Tagging a location is linked to roughly 43% more engagement on the average Instagram post.
- Adding music to a carousel makes it eligible to appear in other people's Reels feed.
- Uploading on weak Wi-Fi can compress your video, and pixelated reels tend to get suppressed.
- Most people watch Instagram on mute, so a reel with speech and no captions loses most of its potential viewers.
- Write your caption as the answer to what someone would Google or ask ChatGPT, then restate the call to action.
- Treat comments like tennis: return every one with equal or more energy and add a follow-up question.
- Liking comments on your older posts sends notifications that pull already-engaged followers back toward your newest one.
- Anyone who views a story containing your shared reel counts as a view on the reel itself.
- A deep link opens the reel directly in the Instagram app instead of a logged-out in-app browser.
Views come from content plus a warmed audience.
WHAT TO LEARN
Instead of blaming the algorithm, pair researched content with deliberate human engagement before and after posting, then route your stories, DMs and owned channels toward the one reel.
01Stop blaming the algorithm
- Stop treating a slump as a shadow ban; low views usually mean the content or the audience warm-up needs work.
- Save the full routine for posts that matter, like launches or breaking a long slump, since running it every time is a full-time job.
02Step 1: Create the post from outliers
- Study five to ten outlier posts from accounts you love and break down their format, topic and opening seconds.
- Borrow structure from outside your niche so your version brings your own taste instead of echoing your industry.
03Step 2: Delete your current stories
- Clear any live stories before you post so the story sequence you build afterward points cleanly at the new reel.
04Step 3: Ten minutes of real engagement
- Spend ten minutes leaving multi-sentence comments and DM replies; reciprocity drives the return, not an algorithmic reward.
- Prioritize mutuals who already comment on your posts, because they are the most likely people to engage back.
06Step 3 cont.: A seat at the table
- On mid-size niche accounts, add genuine opinions or questions and never plug your own reel in their comments.
07Step 4: Post with the right settings
- Tag a nearby city or your business location, which is associated with about 43% more engagement.
- Add lyric-free music under 20% volume, and add music to carousels so they can surface in the Reels feed.
- Turn on auto translation and dubbing plus Also Share On to reach other languages and Facebook or Threads.
- Burn in closed captions and write a caption that answers a likely search query and repeats the call to action.
08Step 5: Pin a comment
- Pin your own comment to add missing context, ask a question, clear up confusion or land a joke.
09Step 6: Respond to every comment
- Reply to every comment with at least equal energy and a follow-up question so some replies become new comments.
11Step 7: Like comments on old posts
- Like and answer comments on your recent older posts so already-engaged followers get a nudge toward your page.
12Step 8: Cross-promote on owned channels
- Send the reel through channels you own, like email, Discord or a broadcast channel, rather than reposting it elsewhere.
13Step 9: Reignite your DMs
- Answer every open DM and add a follow-up so recent engagers are more likely to be shown the new reel.
14Step 10: Prime your story
- Post one or two text-heavy stories that introduce the reel's topic, since story viewers and reel viewers only partly overlap.
15Step 11: Share the reel or a DM deep link
- Share the reel to your story with a reason to tap; every story view also counts as a reel view.
- For more reach, use a keyword story reply that triggers an automated DM with a deep link opening the reel in-app.
Terms worth knowing.
- Outlier
- A post that dramatically outperformed an account's usual results, used as a research sample for what format, topic and hook resonated.
- Mutuals
- Accounts that you follow and that also follow you back, which makes them more likely to see and reciprocate your engagement.
- Pinned comment
- A comment the post owner fixes to the top of the comment section so it is the first thing anyone opening the comments sees.
- Also Share On
- An Instagram posting toggle that automatically publishes the same reel or post to Facebook and Threads.
- Cross-promotion
- Pointing people from a channel you own, such as an email list, Discord or broadcast channel, to a specific post on another platform.
- Priming your story
- Posting one or two text-heavy stories that introduce a reel's topic before sharing the reel itself, so story viewers arrive curious.
- Deep link
- A link that opens directly inside the native app where the person is already logged in, instead of a browser or in-app web view.
- DM keyword automation
- A tool such as ManyChat that automatically sends a message or link to anyone who replies to a post or story with a specific word.
Things they pointed at.
02:25toolPoppy AI
15:50linkFree max-views posting checklist
28:10toolManyChat
Lines you could clip.
01:00
“Mark Zuckerberg does not hate you. You are not shadow banned.”
01:15
“At the end of the day, if you make good engaging content, you will get views.”
06:30
“The algorithm isn't going to be like, oh, Susie's a good little girl. She spent 10 minutes engaging. Let's make sure her post gets more views.”
11:00
“We are not trying to go to someone else's party just to invite people to your party. That's tacky.”
17:25
“If someone hits the ball to you, in tennis, you want to hit it back even harder.”
27:00
“Anyone who views that story counts as a viewer on the reel. So if your story gets 37 views, your reel just got 37 extra views as well.”
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
If you're not getting enough views on your reels, then this episode is the one for you. Because in today's episode, I'm going to be sharing with you the 11 steps that you need to follow in this exact order to get the most possible views on your next reel. This is the 11 step checklist that I use whenever I have a post that I really want to do well.
Maybe it's a sale, a promotion, maybe it's a happy birthday post for my wife. But if for whatever reason you have a reel that you really want to make sure gets the most possible views, or if you just haven't been getting very many views at all recently, if you feel like you're shadow banned, if you feel like the algorithm hates you, if you're stuck in the 200 or the 1 ,000 or the 5 ,000 view jail, then this is the exact process that you should follow.
And before I even get into the 11 things that you need to do, the number one thing that you need to stop doing is stop blaming the algorithm. Mark Zuckerberg does not hate you. You are not shadow banned.
It is not the algorithm that suddenly changed overnight and that's why you're not getting any views. at the end of the day, if you make good engaging content, you will get views. With that being said, there are some little tricks.
There are some little things that you can do to maximize your potential or to raise the roof and increase the ceiling of how many views your reels can get. And so that is exactly what I'm about to break down for you. Step number one is to create the post.
Now, this is actually where a lot of the differentiation and a lot of the virality or a lot of the views can come from. Because if you were to just post anything from your camera roll, but then still use steps two through 11.
Sure, you might get more views than if you hadn't followed steps two through 11, but you're not going to get very many views to begin with. Like I mentioned a moment ago, good views come from good content. So in order to make this post, the one that actually breaks the shadow ban, here's what I want you to do.
Substep number one for creating the post is go to five of your favorite accounts, five accounts that you absolutely love, that always make you smile, that always make you laugh, that always leave you feeling inspired. And it actually doesn't even necessarily matter if they are in your niche or not maybe they're super creative maybe they're super original i don't want you to go to your daughter's page just because you love your daughter i want you to go to your five favorite accounts to follow and if there aren't five that immediately come to mind just scroll through your feed for a little bit scroll through your feed for like maybe three to five minutes and stop on any account that you're like oh my god i love this post or i recognize this account i love anytime this account posts then step number two is to use poppy ai or any similar tool that can pull out the outliers.
The outliers are the posts that far outperformed the rest, the ones that not only went viral, but went mega viral for that account. And I want you to pull out between five and 10 of their biggest best performers, their best outliers. Then sub step number three is to put on your education hat and do a little bit of digging.
It's time to do some research and we're going to break down these viral posts, these outliers as much as we possibly can. I want you to pay attention to the format, also known as like the style of the post. Was it a talking head reel?
Was it a skit reel? Was it a trending topic reel or a voiceover or a lip sync? Was it a dancing reel?
What was the format? What was visually on the screen? Number two, what was the topic.
Maybe this post went viral because it was relating to Stranger Things and it was posted right after Stranger Things came out last year. If that's the case, that's not super helpful because Stranger Things didn't come out recently, but maybe we could make that helpful by thinking about what is the show that everyone's talking about right now?
What is the thing going on in pop culture that everyone is paying attention to right now if it's not Stranger Things anymore? I want you to pay attention to what was the hook of those viral videos. Not just the text on the screen or the words that they said, but what was actually on the screen?
What was going on? on for those first few seconds. Basically, you need to analyze these viral videos and you need to break them down to figure out every single nuanced part, every single little piece, every element that may or may not have, because ultimately you probably aren't going to have an exact answer, but may or may not have influenced the results and the virality of that post.
And then finally, sub -step number four is to recreate your own version. Do not steal, do not plagiarize, do not word for word recreate their reel, but make your own version, put your own spin on it. This is oftentimes why I find that it's helpful to actually look outside of your niche because then you don't just become a parrot of everyone else in your industry who's doing well, but you are actually bringing your own taste, your own preferences, your own interests and passions and hobbies.
Maybe you are a Pokemon content creator yourself, but one of your favorite Instagram accounts, is in the racing the formula one niche and so you're going to grab a great viral post from that formula one account and you're going to put your own spin on it and make it your own taking all of the elements that made it viral that made it successful and bringing it to your niche Now, of course, this is a great time for me to plug the rest of my podcast because literally every single week on this channel, I put out some sort of new helpful video about creating good content.
So if you struggle with any of those sub steps, one through four, you just, you know, that you struggle with step number one in general, you struggle with creating the content, creating a good post. What is share worthy? What is viral?
What is a good hook? If you struggle with any of that, make sure you hit that subscribe button and feel free to check out any of the other recent episodes that I've put out. Because like I said, every single week, I'm giving you helpful ideas, strategies, and tips to grow on Instagram.
Okay, great. You've made the post now that you have made it before you actually press post. The second step in this 11 step process is to delete all of your current Instagram stories.
Now we're going to get into the why in just a little bit, but basically we need to reset our Instagram stories. Now what we've created is probably a reel. Maybe it's a carousel, but it's some kind of a feed post.
What you've created is not a story. but we're going to use our stories to amplify that feed post. And in order to do that, in order to get the most possible amplification from our stories, we first need to reset our Instagram stories.
So the way to do that is if you have any Instagram stories that are currently published at the time that you're ready to post that reel or photo or carousel, make sure to delete them. Step number three is a little bit controversial, and it's that I want you to spend 10 minutes at a minimum, 10 minutes replying to other people's stories and commenting on other people's posts.
Now, I need to make sure we're clear about this. This is not something that you need to do every single time, nor is this something that you should do every single time you post. Also, algorithmically speaking, you will not get any benefit from this.
The algorithm isn't going to be like, oh, Susie's a good little girl. She spent 10 minutes engaging. Let's make sure her post gets more views.
No, that's not how it works. But there is a human element to it, right? I always talk about that there's the audience and there is the algorithm.
Algorithmically speaking, you're not going to get a boost for engaging with other people's posts. Audience wise, if you are commenting on people's posts, if you're replying to people's stories and you're interacting with them, human reciprocity is going to make them more likely to engage with your content, more likely to seek out your page, more likely to want to return the favor and go engage with you.
Now, one key that you definitely need to know is that I said comment and DM reply. It needs to actually be words that you're sending and they should have some meaning to them. The purpose of this, yes, ultimately is to help you get more views on your reels, but you also just want to be.
You want to be complimentary. You want to go out of your way to brighten someone else's day because then as you put out more of that positive energy, more of it will flow back to you. But again, this is not something that the algorithm is going to reward you for.
This is not something that you should do every single time. And I do say comment or DM because if you just go through and you like a bunch of posts, you're reposting a bunch of people's stories and reels. they're a lot more likely to miss that.
But if you send them a two -sentence direct message or you leave a multi -sentence comment, they're a lot more likely to see that and that's going to carry a lot more weight. I mean, just think about it for yourself. Are you more likely to appreciate and reciprocate when someone leaves you a really kind three -sentence compliment?
Or are you more likely to appreciate and reciprocate when someone double -taps your reel? Now, who should you be engaging with? It should not be celebrities.
It should not be my page. As much as I would appreciate the engagement, don't go to my Instagram and start leaving comments and start liking a bunch of my posts right before you post. It's probably not going to make any difference.
I don't really check my notifications. What you should do instead is go to the pages of the people who meet the following three criteria. Number one, you follow them.
If you don't follow them, it's going to be a little weird if you start commenting on their posts because then they're going to think, wait, why did Stacey comment on a bunch of my posts but she doesn't even follow me? So number one, make sure it's people you follow. But even better, number two, make sure it's people who follow you, right?
Because if you follow them, but they don't follow you back, then they're probably not going to see your post to begin with. So you follow them and they follow you, also known as mutuals. And then the best of the best is mutuals who regularly engage with your content.
So scroll through some of your recent posts, maybe even some of the ones that did a little bit better, ones that actually got some comments and some likes, and see who was regularly liking, who commented on more of your recent posts than anyone else. Go to those people's pages and engage with them. Those are already the people who are your quote unquote super fans, or at least they are your most engaged followers.
And so by engaging with them, they're the most likely group to reciprocate and engage back. There was a period of time where I was obsessed with stand -up comedy. And during that period, I heard one of my favorite jokes of all time from John Mulaney, where he said something along the lines of, he's a 30 -something -year -old man, and he still thinks about how he can't wait to get big and strong.
And I thought that was so funny because I relate to that so heavily myself. And I know I was a college football player, but I'm not exactly like the buffest guy in the room. But I'm also looking forward to when I get big and strong.
So something that I'm doing to turn that dream into a reality is taking creatine. And the creatine that I've been taking every single day for the last few months is from Momentous.
Every single morning, I mix a scoop of their new Signature Spec Creatine into my oatmeal, and it's amazing. Because I ain't no fitness expert, but from what I understand, Creatine is one of those supplements that is really good for you in so many different regards. And now, the Signature Spec Creatine is even cleaner, with 10 times fewer impurities, 2 to 5 times tighter heavy metal limits, and screening for PFAS and microplastics.
If you want to try Momentous' new Signature Spec Creatine, just head to livemomentous .com and use code BYT for up to 35 % off your first order. Again, that's live momentous .com and use code B Y T for up to 35 % off L I V E M O M E N T O U S live momentous .com and use promo code B Y T.
The other group of people who you can leave comments on their posts is people in your niche who do have a large following. I don't want you to necessarily go to celebrities in your niche. Like don't go to people who have more than a million followers in your niche, but go to people who have maybe tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.
of followers in your niche and leave some comments on their recent posts now what you are not doing is saying go check out my new reel or oh my god i love this i just made a reel about this too no no we are not siphoning we are not trying to steal views we are not trying to go to someone else's party just to invite people to your party that's tacky that's annoying no one likes that instead what you are doing is you're leaving genuine comments you're leaving compliments you're adding your own two cents you are genuinely engaging and leaving thoughtful remarks or funny comments, the type of stuff that maybe it's going to get pinned.
Maybe it's going to get replied to. Maybe you're asking a question of the creator. Basically, you're just trying to do what I like to describe as .
You're making yourself a part of the conversation. Maybe some people are going to see your comments, your questions, your two cents that were added on someone else in your industry's posts, and they're going to check out your page as well. But if nothing else, you're kind of establishing yourself as a thought leader you're establishing yourself as someone who has a voice and an opinion in this community and again remember all of this was done before you even pressed post step number four is to post Now, you can't just boot up that reel that you made and press post.
There are actually some settings that I do recommend checking off, turning on, or turning off before pressing that little share button down at the bottom. And here's what they are. Number one, add a location.
And preferably, it should be a location of a relatively big city near you. You don't have to do New York, New York, or LA. But if you live near a decent metropolitan area, tag that location on your reels.
Or more importantly, if your location actually matters, if you have like like a physical location business or something like that, then definitely tag the physical location on your reel. Studies have shown that the average Instagram post that has a location tagged on it gets 43 % more engagement.
So turn it on. Setting number two is to add music. If it's a carousel post, adding music to your carousel makes the carousel eligible to show up on other people's Reels pages.
So as they're scrolling through Reels, they could see your carousel. It's a great way to get some more views, followers, and attention. But also, even if you're posting a Reel where it's talking head and it's educational.
Add some background music. Make sure it doesn't have lyrics because if it has lyrics, it will compete with your voice speaking. So make sure it's some sort of instrumental or background beat and then just turn it down.
I like to turn mine down below 20%, oftentimes even below 10%. So it's just very faint. It's just a little elevator music in the background.
It's a nice touch. If you can find music that emotionally connects to your reel or amplifies the message you're sharing, even better. But at a bare minimum, let's add music.
Step number three, make sure that automatic translation and dubbing is turned off. on. That way your reel can be viewed in numerous languages automatically so that if someone speaks Spanish and they're scrolling through Instagram, your reel will show up on their page in Spanish.
It's super cool, super crazy that Instagram introduced this, but it's a great way to get some more views from an international audience. Number four, turn on also share on. That way you can automatically share your reel or your post to Facebook and or threads.
It's a little bit of cross promotion, which we're going to talk about later, but basically you just want to maximize the views and the distribution of this reel. So turn on. also share on number five sounds silly but make sure that you're on high quality wi -fi so that your video is able to upload at the highest quality if you post any video reel or carousel and you're not on wi -fi or you're not on strong wi -fi it can sometimes compress the video and thus make it a little bit more pixelated and thus your views will usually be suppressed because of that number six has a little bit more to do with editing but i thought it would be good to mention it here and it's that your video needs closed captions every single reel that has any sort of spoken audio, any sort of talking head, anything like that needs, needs, needs closed captions.
The vast majority of people are watching Instagram on mute. And so if you do not have closed captions, then you are literally stopping the vast majority of people from being able to watch your reel. So make sure that you turn on and add closed captions.
Oh, and speaking of captions, the caption, the little text that goes below your post, I know that can be confusing. When I say closed captions, I'm referring to subtitles. When I say the caption, I'm talking about the little text that's typed out below.
your post, make sure that the caption includes two things, a hook. Oftentimes it can be very similar to what was actually in the hook of your post. It can sometimes be like a summary of what your post is about.
Oftentimes recently with my captions, I've been thinking, what would someone Google or what would someone ask ChatGPT that I would want this reel to show up as the result for? And I'll write that as my caption. And the second thing that I always include in my caption is a reiteration of the call to action.
So if my post ended by saying, share this with a friend who needs to see it. well, then that will be in my caption as well. If my post said, like this reel, if you learn something new, well, then that will be in my caption as well.
So make sure that your caption has some sort of hook or summary of the post. And number two, some sort of call to action relating to what people just watched. It's okay if you have more in your caption, but make sure you have at least those two things.
This is actually a great time for me to pause and acknowledge that I know that this is a multi -step process and this feels like a lot. That's why number one, like I said earlier, you're not going to do this for every single post. You're only going to do this when your reviews have been really low for a while.
while or when you have a post that you really want to make sure hits its peak in terms of views. But the second thing that I wanted to say is that we actually have a completely free downloadable checklist so that you can follow along with everything I'm outlining in this episode every time you press post. Many of our Instaclub members actually have told me that they have printed off versions of this checklist and they keep it handy and they just go through it one by one and check off all these boxes every time they press post.
So again, totally free and I will link that up down in the show notes below. But now that we've actually pressed post, our work isn't done.
We're actually only halfway through this list. We're on number five out of 11. And the fifth thing that I recommend doing, this is the first one right after pressing post, is adding a pinned comment.
When you pin a comment on Instagram, it makes it the number one first comment that people see when they open the comment section. And you can pin your own comment, thus giving you control over the first thing that people see when they open the comments. I like to use the pinned comment in a few different ways.
One is adding additional context. that might've been missing from the caption or from the post. Number two is asking a question that maybe you want people to answer that they would likely be curious about or be thinking about at the end of your post.
Number three, clarifying anything that might've been confusing in the post. Or number four, making some sort of joke that references the post. Oftentimes you can actually use a GIF sticker on Instagram, comment one of those, and it can be a great way to boost up engagement for anyone who is viewing the comments.
So comment on your own post and then pin it. That's step five. Step number six is kind of like an ongoing step that's going to persist throughout the remainder of these following steps.
And it's to respond to the comments. As a comment comes in, respond, answer. Even if someone just says like heart emoji, respond and say, thank you so much.
I appreciate it. I've heard a few great analogies when it comes to comments on social media. One compares comments to tennis.
And basically the thought here is that if someone hits the ball to you, in tennis, you want to hit it back even harder. And I'm not a tennis coach.
I'm not saying that that's like what you have to do to be great at tennis. Ain't no Serena Williams over here. But what I am saying is treat it like tennis, where if someone's hitting the ball to you and them hitting the ball to you is them leaving the heart emoji, you hit it back to them, but hit it back equal or even harder.
So if they just say, love this, you say, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. And then I want to give you one additional tip, which is to ask a follow -up question.
So if someone says, love this, don't just say, thanks so much. I really appreciate it. Say, thanks so much.
I really appreciate it. Had you ever seen this before? Had you ever thought of this before?
Are you going to use this for yourself? Did you save it for later? Ask some sort of follow -up question.
And will everyone respond to your follow -up question? No. But even if just a couple of people respond to your question, that's a couple more comments that your post just got.
But the second analogy besides the tennis analogy is like a coffee shop. Imagine you went to a coffee shop. and the barista handed you your cup of coffee and you're like, oh my God, I love this.
And they just like looked at you and walked away. Or imagine you got to the front desk and you were like, oh my gosh, I love your sweater. Where'd you get it?
And they were just like, thanks. And they didn't respond, right? Or they didn't give you any details.
Respond, reciprocate. answer people. If you don't, I mean, you wouldn't go back to that coffee shop, right?
You'd be like, oh my God, that was so weird. Unless the coffee was just that good, you wouldn't keep going there. You'd be super annoyed.
You definitely wouldn't tip very well in the future. And so the same is true on Instagram. Always respond.
And whenever possible, try to think of a follow -up or clarifying question that you can ask. And again, you're going to keep doing this for at least the next few hours. Again, this is not something that you're going to be able to do with every single post.
If you needed to spend hours responding to comments immediately with every single post, oh my God, that would be literally a full time job. This is only what you're doing when you want to maximize the post.
But so we're responding to comments. If you're someone who gets a bunch of comments, as soon as you press post, because you have an engaged audience, awesome. Respond to a bunch of them.
If not, maybe you're going to do steps seven through 11, and then you're just going to keep popping back into the comments as new comments come in. About a decade ago, the scariest 72 hour period in the history of our family's business took place. Hackers had used social engineering to figure out the password to just one of my mom's accounts.
And through that, they were able to access her email, which allowed them to hack into her Facebook and her Instagram. They doxxed us, which means they gave up our family's home address.
They threatened and extorted us. And they began removing all of my mom's posts one by one and replacing them with extremely inappropriate images, causing us to lose over a quarter of a million followers as a family overnight. And ever since that day, cybersecurity has been one of my biggest focuses.
Now, it's something that I don't necessarily talk about all the time because like you're doing right now, most people just tune it out and think, yeah, that's no big deal. I don't need to worry about that. But the reality is hundreds of thousands of social media accounts are compromised every single day.
And when your account is compromised, your business is compromised too. And that's why I'm so excited to introduce you to one of today's sponsors, Keeper. Keeper is a password manager that creates strong and unique passwords for all of your accounts.
Because no, you should not just be reusing the exact same password for every app. Keeper then stores them all securely in one place so that you don't have to remember them all. And then Keeper can automatically log you in across all of your devices without you having to expose your passwords anywhere.
From individuals and solopreneurs to families and small businesses, Keeper is the app that will keep you safe. Millions of people already use Keeper to keep their business and their accounts locked down. And right now, Keeper is offering 60 % off their personal and family plans at KeeperSecurity .com forward slash BYT.
And this incredible offer is only available for my podcast listeners. Again, that's KeeperSecurity .com forward slash BYT for 60 % off the personal and family plans. And if you're leading a team, check out Keeper's business plans as well.
Just make sure you use my link so they know that I sent you. Again, that's Keeper Security, K -E -E -P -E -R -S -E -C -U -R -I -T -Y .com forward slash B -Y -T. But step number seven is actually to go back to all of your recent posts from the past and like and respond to every comment.
So hopefully you've already responded to all of your comments on your past posts because kind of like we were just talking about, that's part of being a good business owner, having a good brand on Instagram. is responding to comments. So let's say your past post, your post right before this one had three comments and you responded to all three of them.
Great. Now what you're going to do is you're going to go to that post and you're going to press the like button. You're going to double tap on each of those comments.
That just sends a little notification to the person that you liked their comment. thus increasing the likelihood that they look for your page or even that algorithmically speaking, they are shown your page. Or hypothetically, if let's say you actually got a fourth comment on that previous post and you didn't respond to it, you're going to respond to it and like it.
Basically, you want to make sure that all of your posts before this one got the most engagement. You want to make sure that all of the posts before this one had their questions answered, people had their comments responded to, and if they already did get responded to, that you like all of those comments. That way, those people, who have already proven that they are a very engaged follower because they literally commented, they're more likely to see this new post as well.
Step number eight is to cross promote. Now I teased you about this earlier, but cross promotion can, for some of us, be a lot. For some of us, it can be not very much.
Cross promotion basically means taking the post and promoting it or sharing it or distributing it on other platforms. Now, if you take your reel and you also post it to Facebook and TikTok and YouTube Shorts, well, then you weren't really cross promoting it because people aren't going to go from YouTube or Facebook or TikTok and go to your Instagram.
They're just going to consume the short form video there. But if you have something like a email list or a newsletter or a blog or a Discord forum or a broadcast channel, on Instagram, basically any sort of distribution channel that you own that can't already have short form video, you can post the link or share the video on that channel or in that platform and thus get more eyeballs from those places onto your Instagram.
For example, some of the people who I follow on Twitch who do live streaming, they also have Discord forums that I'm a part of. And so whenever they go live on Twitch, I also get a notification from their Discord that, hey, such and such is live on Twitch. Go tune in.
I have people who I'm in their broadcast channel on Instagram. And so whenever they post a reel that they want to make sure they get views on, they will send it in the broadcast channel and give me a little background as to why I should check it out or at least an alert that that new post has gone live. Step number nine is to go to your DMs on Instagram and respond to any and all unanswered direct messages.
Or if someone has given you like a like or a thumbs up or like a love this or anything like that, again, like we were doing in the comments, try your best to respond. Try your best to have some sort of follow -up question. Basically, we're trying to reignite our DMs.
And we're trying to do this for the same reason that we were reigniting our comments a moment ago. We're taking the people who have already recently engaged with our page and we are reengaging with them, increasing the likelihood that we are top of mind, increasing the likelihood that they search for our page. and increasing the likelihood that the algorithm shows our new post to them.
If Susie sent me a question a few hours ago and I hadn't responded to it prior to posting, then after I press post, if I respond, Susie will be more likely to see that post. If I had already responded to Susie, but now I go back in and I ask a follow -up question or I say something else to her, that also increases the likelihood that she sees my new post.
Step number 10 goes all the way back to step number two, where I told you to delete your Instagram story. We were resetting our story's algorithm so that we could get... the most possible views on our story and use that to get more views on our reel.
Now, there's two different ways that you can go about step number 10 and step number 11. Step number 10 is to prime your story. Priming your story essentially refers to the marketing practice of getting your audience warmed up, getting them ready.
Oftentimes, the people who are watching your story are not the same people who are viewing your reels, or it's not at least a 100 % crossover. There might be some crossover in that Venn diagram, but they're oftentimes a separate audience. So what you want to do is post one to two.
text -heavy stories that start introducing the topic of your reel, the news that you're covering, the tip that you're sharing, the story that you're telling. It starts introducing that to your audience and it starts getting them curious as to this topic, this story, this post. They don't quite know that it's a post just yet, but they're starting to think about this topic.
They're getting ready for it. Step number 11, the final step, is really where there's two options. There is the easier option that will usually result in less views and there's the more challenging challenging, more technical option that usually results in more views.
So the lower tech, easier option that will still get you some views, but just not like your peak, peak views is to then once you've primed your story and you've started introducing the topic to your audience and you've gotten them all warmed up and ready for the reel, then you share the reel to your story. Now, don't just share it to your story, but share it and add some complimentary context.
Add some additional text. Ask a question. Tell people that they need to watch till the end.
Tell people that the third tip that you shared in this four -step sequence was the most important of all. Give people an actual reason to click on the story and watch it.
Maybe they need to go check out your pinned comment. Maybe they need to read the caption. Maybe there's something that you can use to get them curious about the reel.
That is the easier way, and you'll get more people clicking on the reel. But the cool thing is, even if people don't click on the reel, anyone who views that story counts as a viewer on the reel. So if your story gets 37 views, your reel just got 37 extra views as well.
The more technical thing that you can do is as follows. Number one, copy the link to your reel and pull it into some sort of tool that allows you to create a deep link. A deep link is a link that when clicked opens in the app.
So you know how sometimes your friends will like text you a reel and you'll click on it and it will open in like Safari or Google Chrome. And then you have to click that extra button that says like open an Instagram, but then it like doesn't open an Instagram. It like opens in the app store.
Does that happen to anyone else? That happens to me all the time. Sometimes I'll click open an Instagram and it will open right in Instagram.
But a deep link is a link that when you click on it automatically opens in that app. And it's an app where you're already logged in. So I use this all the time, especially when I'm promoting my YouTube channel on Instagram.
So that when I send someone the link to one of my YouTube videos, they don't open it like. in the Instagram browser where they're not logged in. Instead, it just automatically redirects them to YouTube where they're already logged in.
But anyways, I digress. What we need to do is take the reel, take the post that you just made that you want to get the most possible views on and create a deep link for it. Then you're going to use ManyChat to create some sort of automation where at the end of the automation, they're getting the deep link.
The easiest way to think about this is that again, step number 10 is you're priming people. You're getting them ready for whatever this post ends up being. Let's say that the post was like your favorite apple pie recipe that you make every fall.
Then you're going to post a follow -up story. that tells people that you finally decided to share your grandma's recipe. After years of people begging, it's finally available and you made it free.
Reply to this story with the word pie and I will send you the full recipe. Then you get people replying to the story with the word pie and that is thus boosting up the story views. We don't need to talk about that.
That's something that I've talked about quite a bit on this podcast with DM Automation. And actually, if you're not sure what I'm talking about right now, next week I'm going to do an entire deep dive in elementary... breakdown of what is DM automation?
Why is it so impactful? Why does it work? Why is it not engagement bait, but why is it definitely something that helps you get more engagement, more views?
Is it allowed on Instagram? We're doing a deep dive next week. So make sure that if that's something that you're curious about, make sure that you hit that subscribe button right now.
But back to what I was saying, you're posting a story where you're like, Hey, you know, I finally posted the recipe. I'm finally giving the tips. I finally told the story, whatever reply with the word blank, and I will send it to you.
Then when people reply with that keyword, you are sending them the deep link to your Instagram reel. So again, let's stick with the apple pie recipe. They click on this button and it opens your reel.
It doesn't like open in this weird like micro browser within Instagram. It literally just opens up your reel and your reel starts playing. That way your story will get even more views.
Your reel will get even more views. You're ensuring that your page is getting more engagement because you're getting these DMs and people are opening the reel. It's a really, really great way.
to maximize the views on your reel. Give these 11 steps a try the next time you want to maximize your views. I'll see you next week.
And as always, happy networking.
The Hook
The bait, then the rug-pull.
The title promises a fix, and the first minute reframes the problem: there is no shadow ban, and Mark Zuckerberg does not hate you. What follows is an ordered 11-step checklist the host reserves for the posts he needs to win, from outlier research before filming to a keyword DM deep link hours after posting.
Named ideas worth stealing.
01:25list
The 11-Step Max-Views Checklist
- Create the post
- Delete current stories
- Spend 10 minutes engaging
- Post with the right settings
- Pin a comment
- Respond to comments
- Like comments on past posts
- Cross-promote
- Answer DMs
- Prime your story
- Share the reel or a DM deep link
An ordered routine reserved for high-stakes posts or for breaking a long slump: four steps before and at posting, seven after.
Steal fora launch-day posting runbook for any important social post
01:50list
Outlier research loop
- Pick five favorite accounts
- Pull 5-10 outliers with Poppy AI
- Break down format, topic and hook
- Recreate your own version
Content creation as research: study what overperformed for accounts you love, ideally outside your niche, then bring those elements to your topic.
Steal forcontent ideation sessions
08:00list
Who to engage before posting
- People you follow
- Mutuals
- Mutuals who regularly engage with you
- Mid-size accounts in your niche
A tiered target list ranked by likelihood of reciprocation; celebrities and huge accounts are excluded.
Steal forpre-launch outreach lists
11:43list
Pre-post settings checklist
- Add a location
- Add quiet instrumental music
- Turn on auto translation and dubbing
- Turn on Also Share On
- Upload on strong Wi-Fi
- Add closed captions
- Caption = hook + CTA
Distribution settings checked on the share screen before publishing.
Steal fora printable posting checklist
17:30concept
Comment tennis
Return every comment with equal or greater energy, then add a follow-up question so some replies turn into additional comments.
Steal forcommunity management guidelines
How they asked for the click.
VERBAL ASK
15:50link
“We actually have a completely free downloadable checklist so that you can follow along with everything I'm outlining in this episode every time you press post.”
Placed mid-episode right where the list feels overwhelming, with social proof that Instaclub members print it; subscribe asks appear at 4:46 and again at 29:11 tied to next week's DM automation episode.
MENTIONED ON CAMERA
Visual structure at a glance.
