
In today’s episode, Brock Johnson shares the results of posting 100 Trial Reels in just 24 hours. We’ll explore the strategies that worked, the insights he gained, and how this new Instagram feature can impact your growth on the platform. Brock...
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I did an experiment where I took what is arguably one of the best features that has ever been released on Instagram and I abused it for 24 hours. The exact experiment, as the title of this podcast states, is I posted 100 trial reels in a 24 hour period to see what would happen. And here are the results. But of course, first we need to make sure we're all on the same page and discuss what the heck even are trial reels. Trial reels are a feature that was released by Instagram at the end of 2024 that basically were supposed to be a way for anyone on Instagram to experiment by posting their reels to be visible only by non followers. Basically it was lower pressure and Instagram thought it would be easier for us to post reels if we got to test them out first by showing them to non followers. That's what Instagram intended and that is still how you can use them if you want to use trial reels to split test your reels. If you're not sure if a reel is going to perform well, you can post it as a trial reel and see how it does. But here's what I and some other marketers very quickly figured out. This was a kind of post that was guaranteed to, on one hand, reach new people, reach new potential followers, new potential customers, and at the same time, on the other hand was not going to spam or overwhelm your existing followers and we could post as many of these as we wanted. This was like a gold mine. And so immediately I started telling people that you need to be posting as many trial reels as possible. One analogy that I've been using is this is like you're a baseball player standing in the batter's box and you just get to swing and swing and swing and it doesn't matter if you make contact, doesn't matter if you foul the ball, it doesn't matter if you hit A home run, you can just keep swinging and you will never strike out. Basically, you have unlimited attempts to go viral or reach new people or grow your following, and there's really no downside. The only real downside of this feature is that it takes a few seconds to post it. And unfortunately, there isn't quite an automated software that can schedule trial reels just yet. I use Metricool to schedule all of my reels on Instagram and actually all of my posts across every social media. But unfortunately, Metricool and no other social media scheduling app that I'm aware of can allow you to schedule trial reels. Now, that could change in the future, but that's really the only downside is you have to manually post them yourself. But that's a pretty small downside for the potential upside of unlimited at bats. Unlimited attempt unlimited trials to reach new people. If you've never posted a trial reel before, you will find the option to post your reel as a trial reel on that last page where you would normally type in your caption. On that page. It could be in one of a few different locations. It could be down at the very bottom, right above the share button, as a big toggle that says trial reels for some people. Or at certain times, it might show up in the tab that's called audience, the one that's usually set to everyone. For some people, when they click on that, they'll see the option for trial reels. And for some people, they'll have to tap on the very bottom option that says more options. Or sometimes it'll say advanced settings and and then you can select trial reel from there. So basically, to create and post a trial reel, you follow the same normal procedure that you would to post any other reel. And then just at the very last step, instead of sharing it with your whole audience, you share it as a trial reel. Now, not to jump too far ahead, because I will be sharing my strategies for trial reels, I have a basic, an intermediate, and an advanced strategy for trial reels for all three. I do not recommend ever sharing your trial reel as a normal reel. Basically, when you create a trial reel or when you post a trial reel, you can set it up so that after a certain amount of time, say 48 or 72 hours, it automatically posts as a normal reel to your feed for your followers to see. Or you can also go in and manually upgrade your reel from a trial reel to a normal reel, thus making it show up on your feed, show up on your grid, and potentially show up in the feed of your followers. And I don't recommend ever doing that for two main reasons. Number one, when it does get upgraded to a normal reel, it shows up as if it was posted when the trial reel was originally posted. So if I posted a trial reel and then I let it be a trial for 48 hours and then let's say it was doing really well, so I upgrade it to be a normal reel. When that normal reel is posted, it will show up in people's feed as if it was posted 48 hours ago. And it will say posted 48 hours ago. And if I've posted other things to my feed since then, it will show up below them in my group grid. So that's kind of a challenge, right? It doesn't post or show up as if it was just now posted. And so the engagement that you're likely going to receive on that post is lower than if you had just posted it. Obviously, you get the most engagement right after you post and not two or three days after you post. That's the main issue with upgrading your trial reel to a normal reel. The second issue with upgrading your trial reels to normal reels is that the engagement rates are often very different. Even if you have a trial reel that's really doing well, you're likely going to be getting different comments, different amounts of engagement and likes. And that can really throw off people when they're used to you getting a certain number of views or likes and they see a post from you that has like significantly less, but it was posted three days ago, it's going to be confusing. And so for most people, I recommend just leaving your trial reels as trial reels forever. I have trial reels that are still technically trial reels and can still get viewed by non followers five or six months after they were originally posted. Because I posted them in December when trial reels was first announced. And I've never upgraded them, I've never deleted them, I've never archived them. So here we are, five, six months later, they're still getting views and I'm never going to upgrade them. Now. Trial reels are supposed to be available worldwide. They have been rolled out worldwide, which is a tongue twister. Try saying that 10 times fast. Rolled out. Worldwide. Rolled out worldwide. I digress. Trial reels should be available on your account. It's not like you have to be set up a certain way or get a certain number of followers or live in a certain country. You. You should have access to them. But Instagram is glitchy and it's Very difficult for the software engineers that work at Instagram to just flip a switch and give all 2 billion accounts access to all the same features at the same time. But usually this is where I would say, tough luck. You got to just cross your fingers and keep waiting. I actually have a solution. So if you don't have trial reels on your account, you can click on the link that's in the show notes below. It's kind of a long link, so I'm not going to read it out. But if you click on that link, it's an official blog from Instagram, and on that blog there will be a big button at the top that says something like create reels. And if you tap on that, you will be able to follow the process of creating a reel. Or you can just upload one that you've already created and then you should see the option to post it as a trial reel. This has worked for most people who have used this link. It's not a foolproof, it's not a guaranteed to work, but it does work for most people. So if you don't have trial reels and you want access to this feature, which I think you should, because like I said, it's arguably the best feature Instagram has ever came out with, just click on that link and it might work for you. And then once you have posted your reel as a trial reel, in order to see it, check on its performance and respond to any comments or engagement that it has received, you simply go to the Reels tab on your profile and then tap on the area where your drafts are saved. And it will, instead of just taking you right into your drafts, it will give you the option to choose between drafts, drafts and trial reels. And then from there, if you tap on trial reels, you can see all of the trial reels that you have previously posted and you can view the insights and the engagement on those trial reels. But enough background into trial reels. Let's get into the actual experiment. And I actually vlogged it. I set out to post 100 trial reels in 24 hours, and I documented the entire process in real time. So here it is. It is 10:38am Mountain time and I just posted my fourth trial reel of the day. My goal for today is to post 100 trial reels in the next 24 hours and just see what happens. This is going to be kind of like an educational vlog and let's see how it goes. So far, in the first four trial reels, I've Posted two talking head and two memes, and all four have been reposts of things I have posted in the past. That's one thing that's probably going to be true for the entire day today is that all 100 of these trial reels are going to be reels that I have previously made and previously posted to my Instagram. Not necessarily new pieces of content or new reels that haven't been posted anywhere before. Also, I guess I can give real time updates on the trial reels. So the first one that I posted, which was posted an hour and 10 minutes ago, has 158 views. The second one, which was posted about an hour ago, has 151 views. The third one, which was posted just 35 minutes ago, has 120 views. And then the fourth one, which was just posted within the last five minutes, is still sitting at zero views. It's now 12:06pm And I have posted 15 trial reels. What I've done is I have downloaded a bunch of reels that I've already posted because I had them saved in Dropbox and Google Drive. So I just downloaded them, airdropped them to my phone, and put them all in a folder so that they're very easy to access. Definitely the biggest challenge for this experiment is just keeping up with the volume because 124 hours is, you know, a little bit more than four an hour. But of course, you know, I have to sleep, right, and I have to do other things. So it's really more like 118 hours. And so that's more like five and a half an hour. So posting six in an hour, that's one every 10 minutes. Like it's a lot. And there's no way to automate it, so I'm having to post them all manually. So anyways, I airdropped a bunch of reels that I have previously posted onto my phone so that they're all just sitting right there as the most recently saved thing in my camera roll. And then I can easily just post them over and over again. As to the strategy of like how I'm picking which one to post, there's not really much of a strategy. I'm just kind of picking ones that I haven't posted already today. But you know, by the end of today I'm sure I'll be posting ones that I have posted already today. But so far in the first 15, they have all been unique from each other at least. But I'm sure pretty soon I'll start repeating ones over and over again. But there's no strategic thought or strategy behind which ones I'm posting or which ones I'm posting when, or any sort of order or sequence or anything like that. Basically I'm just selecting one and as long as I haven't previously posted it, I'm posting that one. Checking in on the views, nothing has significantly popped off. The ones that I've just posted within the last 20 minutes are still all 10 views or less. The ones that I have posted earlier today are the highest being 228 views and the lowest being 16 views, which is really interesting. That one got stuck at 16, but the rest are all between 144, 162, 179. So it seems like between 150 and 200 seems to be like the average. All right, yes, I have a vest on now, but we have run into what I think is the first error of the day. Maybe it's a glitch, I'm not sure. Some people have DM me about this, but they've said that when they've tried to post a ton of trial reels in a day, at a certain point Instagram just like stops working, stops letting them post trial reels. Now Instagram hasn't publicly said anywhere that there's a limit or a cap on the number that you can post in a day. And it also wouldn't really make sense from a social media platform to limit the number of times that someone can post because if there's more people posting, that's just like more content to be fed into the algorithm and more potential opportunities to keep the users on Instagram. So I'd be very, very surprised if Instagram did put a cap. Now of course there are like spam limits on Instagram, but there are people who post hundreds of times just on Instagram every day. Like literally there are accounts. There's one viral example of an account that blew up and they were in an interview with Mr. Beast and they're a Bollywood entertainment reporting style account and they post over a hundred times a day and they're growing like crazy. And that's a hundred real posts like to the actual feedback. Now I could see Instagram putting some sort of limit in place specifically just for a feature like trial reels. But again, they haven't said anything like it. And I haven't received a ton of DMs, just a couple here or there. But I just tried to post and I got this notice that says not posted. We'll try again when there's A better connection. And when I got it the first time, I was connected to my WI fi here at my house and I have good WI fi here at the house. So I tried disconnecting from WI fi and it's still not working. So maybe this is a glitch. Maybe I'm posting too quickly. I posted my last one 10 minutes ago, which I've posted plenty of trial reels in shorter than a 10 minute window, so we'll see. This would be my 24th trial reel posted in the last four hours. If you include the trial reels that I posted yesterday and last evening, it's probably over 25 in the last 24 hours. So we'll see. I don't know if it's the limit. I'll keep trying and trying over and over again, pressing the retry button. If it doesn't work, then I'll maybe give it a few minutes, give it 10 minutes or so and then try again in a little bit. But we'll see. We may have found that there is a limit as to the number of trial reels that you are even allowed to post per day. Also, I don't know if this has anything to do with anything, but I did just post a carousel to my feed six minutes ago. So again, I don't think that that should do anything. But it is interesting that the first trial reel that I've had that hasn't been able to post is the one that I posted a few minutes after posting a regular feed post. So again, not sure what's going on. Maybe it's a glitch, maybe it's a limit. We'll see. All right, now this is interesting. I just closed the Instagram app and I was about to just like put my phone down for a few minutes and then I reopened it really quick. And I noticed that there's two notifications at the top that are in reference to the trial reel that I just tried to post. One says, something went wrong, please try again later. And the other one says, this has not been posted and is now saved in your drafts. And next to each there is a little retry button. Next to the top one there is a X. And next to the lower one there is three dots. So if I tap the X it just removes that notification. If I tap those three dots, it says delete, draft, or dismiss. I'll just dismiss it for now. And again, I'm going to close my Instagram app and reopen it in a few minutes. Try again. All right, so I gave it about 15 minutes and it still says that it cannot be posted. I do find it interesting that it says we'll try again when there's a better connection. I know my connection is fine, but I will try leaving the house and seeing if the reel posts from a different location. I will say after this 15 minute break, I did try posting a different reel than I was previously posting in case there was just some sort of issue with that previous reel. We'll see if this is the limit. I don't know why Instagram wouldn't just tell us that that's the limit or even in this notification why it doesn't say not posted, you've hit your limit for the day. Like it would be so easy for it to say that instead of saying we'll try again when there's a better connection and then even giving me a retry button. So anyways, I'll give it another 15, 20 minutes. I'll try moving to a new location where maybe there's a better connection and we'll see. All right, so it is now 3pm it is over an hour and a half since I posted my last trial reel. In fact, it's over an hour and 45 minutes since I posted last trial reel and Instagram is still telling me that the upload failed. So I think basically we've hit our limit. Like I said, I did post two trial reels yesterday, so that brings us to a total of 25 trial reels in the last 24 hours. And apparently that is the limit that Instagram has put in place. So I wasn't able to post 100 trial reels in 24 hours. I tried, I did my best, but Instagram didn't allow me to do so, it appears. And I have talked to numerous other individuals since then. Instagram seems to have a limit of 25 trial reels per day, or rather 25 trial reels per 24 hour period. And I do say per 24 hour period because the following day, as we started to pass the times from the previous day where I had posted a trial reel, it kind of like unlocked the ability for me to post more trial reels. So unfortunately I wasn't able to post the full 100, but I was able to post 25. And I can share my stats with you from those 25 trial reels. And I have now since then posted over 100 trial reels total. And I can share some insights with you from those as well. From the 25 trial reels that I posted during this experiment, I received a total of 33,545 views and about 50 followers. Now you might be thinking 30,000 views. Brock, you have more subscribers on this podcast. Brock, you have 700,000 followers on Instagram. Why are you celebrating over 30,000 views? And let me just say what a problematic way to think. Like, I feel like so many of us are brainwashed that we need to be going viral, we need to be getting hundreds of thousands or millions of views, or else things aren't worth it. I got 33,000 people who have never seen my content, never seen my post before, who have no idea who I am or what my business does to see my posts. And 50 of them, 50 people joined and followed me in that one day. According to a few studies, the average Instagram growth rate is about.08% or less than 1% per month. And so I would be willing to bet that most people listening are not gaining 50 followers a day. And I also want you to keep in mind that the views that my trial reels received are not impacted at all by the number of followers I have or the number of views I normally get. It doesn't matter if you have 3 million followers or if you have 30 followers. Trial reels are kind of treated the same. They're all posted to non followers. Instagram doesn't care. Hey, this person normally gets 10,000 views. Hey, this person has 350 followers. They don't care because they're showing it to new people. And so while you might look at those numbers for me and be like, oh, well, that's low compared to what Brock normally gets, it's very possible that you could achieve those exact same numbers, if not better. So how would you feel if you got 30,000 new viewers every single day? People who have no idea who you are, people who have never followed you or seen your business before, but might be interested in it. How would you feel if you got 50 new followers a day? That's equivalent to 18,250 followers a year for doing almost no additional work. We're going to get into how this can be no additional work in just a second. Back to what I was saying. I think we have a very skewed perception of. Of what's normal and what we should be happy with or proud of on social media. Like, I hear people all the time, oh, Brock, I only got eight likes. You got eight likes. Imagine eight strangers on the street coming up to you and giving you a compliment. Or imagine eight of your friends or your customers sending you a text with some kind words in A day like that's impressive. And so I think we should stop poo pooing these results and recognize that while maybe every trial reel might not be a home run, even if you're making contact with the ball, even if you're making it to first base, that's progress and that's a win and something to be proud of. But with all that being said, I do want to say that the averages that came out of this study, which the average of 33,000 views divided by 25 trial reels was about 1300 views per trial reel, and I think maybe two followers per trial reel. That's actually not a great indication of how trial reels have performed for me over the long haul. I don't have the exact numbers because we haven't calculated all of the stats from every trial reel that I've ever posted, but I have numerous trial reels that have well over 20,000 views on the individual reel, 50,000 views on a reel, a hundred thousand. I have multiple trial reels that have gone viral, and that from one trial reel alone have gained me 50 or 100 plus followers. And so while this experiment isn't the greatest indication of what the average trial reel experience is like, I think that this experiment is an indication of what even a low level of trial reels, what the low end results will be like. And so I want you to think about the potential that is out there for reaching tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or maybe even millions of people from a trial reel. Now, I hypothesized that this experiment wasn't going to go viral or blow up my account or anything like that. And that's because I followed the basic strategy, my basic trial reel strategy. And like I said earlier, I have three main trial reel strategies, and I'm going to outline them for you. And for this experiment, I really just stuck with the baseline strategy because it was the simplest, it was the easiest, and I wanted it, like I said, to just kind of be a baseline or a basic level of results. So I'm going to outline the basic intermediate and advanced trial reel strategies for you right now. And the basic strategy is for someone who maybe you haven't had access to trial reels before, maybe you're kind of just barely staying afloat with this whole social media business thing. You're just trying to grow a business online. You had never heard of trial reels before today. You had never used them. You were confused. You're new to growing on social and you're still developing your skills. Hey, there's, no problem with that. You are welcome here. You're welcome on this podcast. You're welcome to subscribe and I would encourage you to start out with the basic reels strategy. And the basic reel strategy is, number one, download all of your past reels. Hopefully you've been downloading them as you go. That's a pro tip that I think everyone should be doing is just saving all of their content. Every reel that you ever make or post should be saved to your camera roll so you can access it in the future. But if you haven't done that, make sure that you download or save any reels that you have already posted. A good website for that is Save Clip app. I know it's a little bit confusing because it's dot app and it's a website. It's not an app. Yes, they have an app, but I do think it's better to use their website. So just go to the website. Save S A V E Clip C L I P A P P this is not sponsored. It's not even a service that you pay for. So I don't even know if they are making money to pay me for saying this, but this is just the the tool that I use to download my own reels. If I have posted them without saving them. You just copy and paste the link to your reel into that website and you can download it right then. And there's so again, step one. Download all of your past reels. Step two put them all into a folder in your camera roll on your actual phone. Don't use your computer, don't use any cloud storage or anything like that in your actual phone's camera roll. Select all of those videos that you just saved and put them all into one folder so that they can be easily accessed and found in the future. And then step three, Post trial reels. Post as many as you can every single day, whenever you can. Remember to. Whenever you can, post a trial reel. Maybe you want to set a goal of posting three a day or five a day. Just try to post as many as you can. And don't worry so much about the caption. Definitely don't worry about the COVID Just take these reels that you've already posted and post them again. And I should say that's really what this whole strategy is based off of. And the way that you're going to be able to post more trial reels without creating more work and more effort for yourself is by reposting your best content. You've already posted it. It's already performed well, why not post it again? You're only going to reach people who didn't see it the first time because they don't follow you anyways. So they likely didn't see it the first time. And you've already done the work to create the reel. You already have the validation that it's a good reel or that it performed well. And so you might as well repost it as a trial reel. In fact, if you look at all of the trial reels that I have posted, I've posted well over a hundred. But I've probably only posted about 30 different trial reels. And some of my best performing trial reels that consistently post after post after post perform well. I've posted them dozens of times. And remember, this will not spam your audience, this will not affect your algorithm, this will not hurt your account in any way, because it's only reaching new people. So that's the basic trial reel strategy. The intermediate trial reel strategy is the same three basic steps, but with a little bit more nuance or a little bit more strategy behind them. So step number one, instead of just downloading all of your past reels or any reel from the past, I want you to take your best reels. Like I was just talking about your reels that got the most views, the most saves, the most shares, your reels that you know have performed really well for you in the past, download all of those. Step number two is the exact same. Put them all in a folder in your camera roll so that you can easily access them and post them whenever you want. And then step three is, instead of just posting, willy nilly, posting when you can, trying your best, set reminders in your phone, set reminders in your calendar so that every few hours you're getting that little ping and reminder to post a trial reel. Eventually it will become like a habit. Eventually it will be something that you don't need the reminders for. And you know, every time you go to the bathroom you post a trial reel, or every time you get in your car, you post a trial reel before you start driving, basically it will be second nature. But more importantly, it will be more consistent and you'll be posting more trial reels. And because you're not just relying on random thoughts to pop in your head, you're actually treating it like a business and putting a system behind it. And then third is the advanced strategy. And this is the strategy that I actually use. And this is for you business owners, when you're like, I want to get the most out of trial reels. Brock. I'm all in. I see the value proposition of this feature and I want to go all in. Here's how you do that. Number one, you're going to have to get a little nerdy. There is no exact way to do this on Instagram, so you're going to have to get a little nerdy. You're going to have to make a spreadsheet. In this spreadsheet, in column A, I want you to insert the link to all of your most viewed reels. This should be relatively easy. You can go to your Instagram Insights or if you use Metricool to schedule, you can use their analytics tool to find all of your most viewed reels. Just copy the link to all of your most viewed reels and put that in column A. Then in column B, I want you to write down how many views that reel got. I don't Care if it's 84 million or if it's 84,000 or if it's 840. Write down how many views you got for that corresponding reel in column B. And then column C. That is where you're going to put how many followers you gained from that reel. Again, you can find this in your Instagram Insights and it will tell you exactly how many followers you gained from that reel. What this will allow you to do is create a column D where you can see the most helpful ratio for your trial reels. And the ratio is basically, how many views did it take me to gain one single follower? For example, when I did this study, I found that my most viral reel wasn't actually my best reel at gaining me followers. While it did get a lot of views, it took a couple thousand views just to get one follower. Whereas I had other reels that didn't necessarily get the most views. They still got a good amount of views, but they didn't get, you know, number one in the rankings. They were maybe number six in my most viewed reels, but they only took a couple hundred or even less than a hundred views to get a follower. What this ratio can tell me is not just what my best views are in terms of getting the most followers or my best reels in terms of getting the most views. This can tell me which reels are the best in terms of converting a viewer into a follower. Once you have this spreadsheet, it will be like unlocking an absolute gold mine. It is crazy, the difference in performance when you post a trial reel that not just got good views, not just went viral, not just was good Engagement, but specifically was a reel that the first time you posted it, it had a very high ratio of viewers becoming followers. Because not only is this proof that it's a good reel, it's proof that it's a reel that's going to convert people into actual followers. And so what I have done is I don't just post my best reels. I don't just post my most viral reels as trial reels. I post these reels, the reels that are proven to have the best viewer to follower ratio. And that's what I double down on. If I post 25 trial reels in a day, probably 16 to 20 of the 25 are the same four or five reels posted two, three or even four times in that day. Because I know that those are the reels that are going to perform the best. They're going to give me the most bang for my buck in terms of converting viewers into followers. So again, I know it's a little bit nerdy. I know it will take some work or some data analysis to figure out what your best of the best reels are, but I think it's worth it. Then once you've figured out what those reels are from the spreadsheet, download them all, but put them in a shared drive, put them in Google Drive, or put them in Dropbox, put them in some sort of cloud based storage so that in step three you can share that folder with an employee, with a staff member, with a social media manager, and then delegate. That's step three. Delegate or outsource the task of posting your trial reels. That way you can be a business owner, you can focus on things that are going to drive revenue. Big picture ideating for the future. You can focus on creating more content that is going to be posted as a normal reel in the future. And you can have someone on your team post the trial reels for you and you don't have to worry about it. And make sure that they are getting the most juice from the squeeze. Make sure that they are posting the maximum number of trial reels per day, which again, we believe it's 25 trial reels per day. Your account might not have that limit. If you can post a hundred, go for it. Some people have said that their limit was 20 in a day, but more or less it's around 25. Make sure that whoever you are delegating this to is posting the maximum number of trial reels per day. Of course, trial reels are not the only way to grow on Instagram. Do believe that the best way to grow on Instagram is creating shareworthy content. Shareworthy content is the kind of content that people are sending to each other. The kinds of content that when one person sees it, they're sending it to their friend, their group chat, their colleague, whatever. It's a really great way to beat the algorithm because then you don't have to rely on the algorithm to show your content to the right people or to push your content out to more viewers. You are letting the existing viewers share it with the perfect ideal recipient, the perfect ideal next viewer. On average we see that one share equates to over 150 additional views. So imagine if just one out of those 150 new viewers also shared your reel. Whether you're posting a normal reel to your feed or a trial reel, focusing on share worthy content is a great way to unlock more views and more growth. We did an entire episode that just actually came out like a week or two ago about share worthy content and the five different kinds and how to create it, and I think you'll be surprised what kind of post is not a share worthy post on average. So we'll link that up down in the show notes below. I highly recommend checking that out. And if you haven't already, I encourage you to subscribe because here on this podcast, every single Thursday I post a new educational quick tip, strategy, Insights, new Instagram or social media feature to help you build your business online. Thank you so much for being here. And as always, happy networking.
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Podcast: Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Hosts: Chalene Johnson & Brock Johnson
Release Date: May 29, 2025
Episode Title: Are Trial Reels The Easiest Way To Grow on Instagram? I Posted 100 in 24 Hours
In this episode, Brock Johnson delves deep into Instagram's relatively new feature, Trial Reels, by conducting an ambitious experiment: posting 100 trial reels within a 24-hour period. The goal is to assess whether Trial Reels are indeed the most effective method for rapid Instagram growth, especially for entrepreneurs and business owners aiming to expand their online presence.
Trial Reels were introduced by Instagram at the end of 2024 as a tool for creators to experiment with their content by making reels visible exclusively to non-followers. This feature was designed to lower the pressure associated with posting, allowing users to test content performance before deciding to share it with their entire audience. Brock explains:
"Trial reels are a feature that was released by Instagram at the end of 2024 that basically were supposed to be a way for anyone on Instagram to experiment by posting their reels to be visible only by non followers." (02:15)
The primary intent behind Trial Reels is to facilitate split testing—allowing users to gauge the potential success of a reel without risking over-saturation of their current followers' feeds.
Recognizing the immense potential of Trial Reels, Brock likens the feature to a gold mine for marketers:
"This was like a gold mine. And so immediately I started telling people that you need to be posting as many trial reels as possible." (04:50)
He emphasizes that Trial Reels offer unlimited opportunities to reach new audiences without the fear of spamming or overwhelming existing followers. This analogy underscores the strategic advantage of leveraging Trial Reels for continuous engagement and growth.
Despite the promising outlook, Brock identifies several challenges associated with using Trial Reels:
Manual Posting: Currently, there are no automation tools that support scheduling Trial Reels. Brock mentions:
"The only real downside of this feature is that it takes a few seconds to post it. And unfortunately, there isn't quite an automated software that can schedule trial reels just yet." (07:30)
Potential Posting Limits: During his experiment, Brock encountered limitations when attempting to post multiple Trial Reels in quick succession. He shares his experience of hitting a posting cap:
"Apparently that is the limit that Instagram has put in place. So I wasn't able to post 100 trial reels in 24 hours. I tried, I did my best, but Instagram didn't allow me to do so, it appears." (25:45)
Glitches and Errors: Brock faced glitches that hindered his posting process, leading to frustration and delays.
Brock embarked on his experiment with the objective of posting 100 Trial Reels within a single day. Here's a breakdown of his approach and findings:
Preparation: He downloaded a plethora of previously successful reels from his archives, ensuring a steady supply of content without the need to create new reels on the spot.
"I've got to manually post them myself. But that's a pretty small downside for the potential upside of unlimited at bats." (09:15)
Execution: Relying on manual posting due to the lack of scheduling tools, Brock began uploading reels at a rapid pace.
Initial Results: Within the first few hours, the Trial Reels garnered between 150 to 200 views each, showcasing steady engagement.
Encountering Limits: Despite his efforts, Brock faced a posting limit after successfully uploading 25 Trial Reels. The platform began rejecting additional uploads with error messages suggesting connectivity issues, which he suspected were actually indicative of a posting cap.
"Instagram seems to have a limit of 25 trial reels per day, or rather 25 trial reels per 24 hour period." (28:00)
Final Outcomes: Although unable to reach the 100-reel mark, the 25 Trial Reels amassed a total of 33,545 views and attracted 50 new followers.
Brock reflects on the experiment's outcomes, advocating for a shift in perspective regarding social media growth metrics:
"You need to stop poo pooing these results and recognize that while maybe every trial reel might not be a home run, even if you're making contact with the ball, even if you're making it to first base, that's progress and that's a win and something to be proud of." (29:30)
He challenges the common mindset of equating success solely with viral numbers, emphasizing that consistent engagement and steady follower growth are valuable achievements, especially for accounts starting or looking to expand modestly.
Brock outlines three tiers of strategies—Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced—to effectively utilize Trial Reels for Instagram growth.
Basic Strategy
Download Past Reels: Ensure all previously posted reels are saved and accessible.
"Download all of your past reels. [...] Save all of your content." (32:10)
Organize Content: Place all saved reels into a single, easily accessible folder on your mobile device.
Consistent Posting: Regularly repost existing content as Trial Reels without overcomplicating captions or strategies.
Intermediate Strategy
Select Top-Performing Reels: Focus on reels that have historically garnered the most views, saves, and shares.
Set Reminders: Implement a system of reminders to ensure consistent posting, eventually turning it into a habitual process.
Advanced Strategy
Data-Driven Selection: Create a spreadsheet to track each reel's performance in terms of views and follower conversions.
"There is no exact way to do this on Instagram, so you're going to have to get a little nerdy." (35:45)
Optimize for Conversion: Identify and prioritize reels that have the highest viewer-to-follower conversion rates.
Delegate Tasks: Share the organized content with team members or social media managers to streamline the posting process, allowing business owners to focus on broader strategies and revenue-driven activities.
Beyond Trial Reels, Brock underscores the importance of shareworthy content—content that organically encourages users to share with their networks. This approach amplifies reach without solely relying on Instagram's algorithm.
"Shareworthy content is the kind of content that people are sending to each other. [...] on average we see that one share equates to over 150 additional views." (38:20)
He highlights that cultivating shareworthy content not only boosts visibility but also fosters genuine engagement, creating a ripple effect of organic growth.
Brock Johnson's experiment with Instagram's Trial Reels offers insightful revelations about leveraging new features for business growth. While the initial attempt to post 100 reels within 24 hours hit unforeseen limits, the findings emphasize the enduring potential of consistent, strategic content distribution. By adopting tiered strategies—from basic reposting to advanced data-driven approaches—entrepreneurs can harness Trial Reels' capabilities to diversify their reach and cultivate a loyal follower base.
As social media platforms continually evolve, Brock encourages listeners to remain adaptable, experiment boldly, and redefine success metrics to align with sustainable growth and meaningful engagement.
Notable Quotes with Timestamps:
“Trial reels are a feature that was released by Instagram at the end of 2024 that basically were supposed to be a way for anyone on Instagram to experiment by posting their reels to be visible only by non followers.” (02:15)
“This was like a gold mine. And so immediately I started telling people that you need to be posting as many trial reels as possible.” (04:50)
“The only real downside of this feature is that it takes a few seconds to post it. And unfortunately, there isn't quite an automated software that can schedule trial reels just yet.” (07:30)
“You need to stop poo pooing these results and recognize that while maybe every trial reel might not be a home run, even if you're making contact with the ball, even if you're making it to first base, that's progress and that's a win and something to be proud of.” (29:30)
“Shareworthy content is the kind of content that people are sending to each other. [...] on average we see that one share equates to over 150 additional views.” (38:20)