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Build Your Tribe | Grow Your Business with Social Media
Make 150 Trial Reels for Instagram in 15 minutes using ChatGPT and Canva - 868
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In today's episode, I'm going to walk you step by step through creating 150 trial reels for Instagram in less than 15 minutes using ChatGPT and Canva. I want to quickly say, if you're listening to the audio version of this episode, I do encourage you to watch the video version on YouTube because this episode is going to be quite tutorial heavy. I did my best to describe what is happening so that you could at least somewhat follow along, but in all honesty, it's just going to be a lot easier to consume and follow along with if you're watching on YouTube. Now, you absolutely could use the steps outlined in today's episode to help you create normal Instagram reels. However, the primary purpose of the flow is to create trial reels, a kind of post that is only shown to non followers. And specifically I'm going to walk you through how you can create slight modifications of numerous posts so that they are good to go and have the green light to be posted as a trial reel. But you wouldn't want to necessarily post multiple slight variations of the exact same reel over and over again to your feed. So again, you could use this for pretty much any kind of content. But specifically, this is going to be a great way to create a lot of trial reels in a short amount of time. If you need more of a background as to what trial reels are, why they are so effective, and my strategies for getting the most out of them, I'll link a video so you can go back and watch that. Because I've done a few episodes about trial reels in the past, today we're going to really focus on creating a lot of content in a short amount of time so that you can use them for trial reels. Step number one is to collect or record 50B roll videos of yourself. B roll videos are kind of like behind the scenes footage. It's short little clips of you doing things throughout your normal daily life or your normal routine. You could kind of think of it as like fly on the wall content or behind the scenes content. It's content where you're not making eye contact with the camera, but you're doing something and it's almost like the camera just happens to be filming you while you're doing that thing. As a side note, adding B roll footage to your talking head reels is one of the easiest ways to make them more engaging. So hopefully you already have at least some footage of yourself. If not, you definitely want to start recording some today. For the future and for the sake of this process that I'm about to be explaining to you, you need 50 different videos of yourself doing things throughout your daily life. Now, if you've never filmed any B roll before, that's probably going to sound pretty overwhelming. So I have two tips to give you with filming or creating this B roll content. Number one, you want to make sure that the B roll relates to your niche. So, for example, you don't want a B roll video of yourself cooking dinner. If your niche is fantasy novels and reviewing books. You want to make sure that the B roll content is in alignment or at least related to what it is you post about your niche. And then the second tip is for coming up with a shot list or figuring out, like, what you should actually film. You can use ChatGPT for that. And don't worry, we're gonna use ChatGPT for other things in the remainder of today's episode. But basically, you could prompt ChatGPT with something like, I am a blank and I need 50B roll videos of myself that relate to my job. Give me a shot list with different settings, angles, actions, and circumstances that I can film. And then one other tip about the actual B roll content. When you are filming it, have a couple different changes of clothes, or at least like, change your shirt out from scene to scene. You don't want 50 videos of you wearing the exact same blue shirt where it looks like all of these clips were filmed on the exact same day. You want some variety to it so that not every single video looks identical to the one before it. So as you are filming this shot list, the ChatGPT gives you just every once in a while, maybe every 10 videos or so, change out what you're wearing so that it looks like it was filmed on a different day. Because most of these clips were filmed on my phone, I found it easiest to just put them all into one single folder in my camera roll and then airdrop them to my computer. I think it's much easier to move around files and export and upload things from a computer or a desktop than it is on your phone. So I airdropped all 50 of those videos to my laptop. And then step number two is I want you to upload all 50 of those short B roll videos, which, by the way, I should have mentioned this earlier. When I say short, I mean they only have to be like 5 to 10 seconds max. Take all 50 of those videos and upload them to Canva. Just drag and drop them right into Canva. And depending on your wifi speed. It might take a few minutes or it might even take a few hours for all of these videos to upload. But. But don't worry, you don't have to just sit there and twiddle your thumbs while you wait. We're actually going to then go back to ChatGPT and we're going to begin the next step in the process to give you a little sneak preview of where we're going. Essentially, we're going to be creating B roll reels. These are reels that are relatively short, 5 to 10 seconds long. They have a B roll clip of you and then they have some text on the screen, some sort of headline, some sort of hook, some sort of stat or quote, something on the screen and that's it. Really simple and really easy to create. So right now, in step number three, we're going to have ChatGPT help us come up with the text on the screen. More specifically, we're going to have ChatGPT create 150 different posts. And even more specifically than that, we're going to have it create 50 different versions of three different kinds of posts. The first kind of post that we're going to use ChatGPT to create 50 of is a. This is a trial reel. Trial reel. These are the kinds of trial reels where on the trial reel itself it says this is a trial reel. It is directly calling out the fact that the viewer does not follow the creator. And so by directly calling that out, you can then creatively and interactively encourage the viewer to click on your profile to follow you, to read the caption or whatever it may be. Here's the prompt that I want you to give ChatGPT. Generate 50 different versions of 1 to 3 sentence on screen text blocks for Instagram trial reels. Each text block should explicitly mention that this is a trial reel and encourage interaction such as a follow, a comment, a guess, a pause, a tap, et cetera. The tone should be casual, confident, slightly playful, and not salesy. Feel free to make that part your own if you want a slightly different tone. Avoid emojis, hashtags or calls to the link in bio. Some prompts should call out that the viewer doesn't follow me yet. Reference the algorithm showing them this anyway. Invite guessing, curiosity or self identification. Lightly tease or challenge the viewer. Output a numbered list from 1 through 50. Once you give that prompt to ChatGPT, you'll end up with a list including things like this is a trial reel. I bet you can't guess how many followers I have. No Cheating. I know you don't follow me, but I post about blank. Whatever it is you post about even though you don't follow me. This post reached you because you're into blank. Luckily, that's what I post about. Again, that is the first kind of post that you're having ChatGPT Create. You now have 50 total posts. The second kind of post or the second kind of text block that you're having ChatGPT create is text blocks with short quotes, tips, stats, or little things that you yourself share. Now, you could go through and manually come up with 50 of these on your own or what I did was I uploaded a bunch of my old podcasts, a bunch of my old Instagram reel scripts. I even just scrolled through my own Instagram page and kind of jotted down some of the ideas that I was sharing in different posts. I uploaded all of that to ChatGPT and then I prompted it with this generate 51 to 3 sentence on screen text blocks for Instagram trial reels. Each text block should feel like my own voice and represent quick tips, stats, short stories, blunt truths, phrases. I often say mini anecdotes or quotable lines that I would realistically say on camera. The tone should be and then feel free to insert your own tone. I usually say the tone should be direct, confident, slightly opinionated, no fluff, no emojis, no hashtags, and not salesy. These are meant to be standalone insights, not calls to action. Write them as if they are pulled straight from my brain or past content, concise, scroll stopping and practical output. A numbered list from 1 to 50 and once ChatGPT creates that list, you'll now have 100 total text blocks. And now we're going to move on to the third kind of post or the third text block that you're going to have ChatGPT create to bring us to a total of 150. And this one is what I call the repeatable format. Now this goes back to something that I talked about in last week's episode of Build you'd Tribe. But I believe that a really effective way to scale up your output, post more, see more growth, more results, more views, but not have to work so hard is to come up with some sort of repeatable format. This is a style that doesn't have to necessarily be unique to you, but it is a style that you can create over and over and over again. For me, one of those repeatable formats is what I call my award reel. It's this reel that I post probably every other month where I'm holding up a trophy of an award and then the text on the screen just changes who I'm giving the award to or who wins the award or who can claim the award is all that's changing. So for this third kind of content, this repeatable format, I basically had ChatGPT come up with 50 different text blocks that could describe who was going to win the award. This is going to require a little bit more work, a little bit more creativity on your end to come up with what is that repeatable format going to be? And then how could ChatGPT give me the text on screen? But if you're not feeling super creative today, feel free to steal my idea. Feel free to create your own version of the holding up a trophy reel. You could hold up an emoji of a trophy or hold up a real trophy if you happen to have one laying around. And then just have ChatGPT generate 50 different ideas or examples of who could be winning said trophy. That will relate to your niche as long as you aren't an Instagram expert or an Instagram growth coach like myself. Your examples, your text blocks are going to be different than me. So knock your socks off once ChatGPT creates those final 50 ideas. Like I said, you now have 150 total text blocks. I want you to copy each list of 50 and paste them into a new Google Google sheet. This Google sheet should have three separate sheets within it. One sheet for each of the different kinds of trial reels. Hopefully by this point, all of your B roll videos are done uploading to Canva, because now we're going to go back to Canva and we're going to combine these B roll videos with the text that ChatGPT just helped us create. Step five in Canva is to create an Instagram reel. Step number six is to add a piece of text onto your reel. Now, the reel that we're looking at on the screen right now is going to serve as kind of like your template that all of of your reels are going to be based off of. So I want you to add the text into kind of like the upper third area, like where the normal title or headline for your reel would be. I also want you to make the text size so that it would fit and that it would look not too big or not too small to be read on Instagram. I usually find that around a 75 point font is good. And then in terms of the font, I recommend using Helvetica because that's the one that is Most similar to the basic Instagram text. Quick sidebar. Can we all please agree to stop using these silly, cursive, weird fonts that no one can read on Instagram? Just stick with the basic font and that's good enough. Then I like to make my text white and then I click on the Elements button and I add an outline that is black to my text. And don't worry, it doesn't have to be perfect. It can totally be changed or moved around in the future. Then in the left hand menu I want you to scroll down and click on the option that says Audio. From there you could really pick any song you want, but I find it's best to pick something that is not super specific or recognizable because you could use a song that's popular or trending today, but maybe when you actually post one of these trial reels five months from now, it's not going to be as popular or trending. So instead what I like to do is scroll down to the section that has instrumentals and just pick one of the instrumentals in there that generally fits my vibe. It generally fits the mood or the tone that most of my trial reels will fall into. Once you select one, just add it to your template reel and that's step number seven. Moving on to step number eight, you're gonna go back to the menu on the left hand and click on the button that says Bulk Create. Then step number nine, click on the button that says Google Sheets. And because you just created the Google sheet that has all of your text blocks in it, it should be one of the first one that shows up, but you might have to search for it. Or if you've never connected your Google account to Canva before, then of course you'd have to do that right now. And then once you click on the Google Sheet, it will show you the three different pages or the three different sheets within the sheet that you have created. So just select the first one first, then click Done in the upper right. Now all you have to do is tap on the text box that we previously created, tap on those three dots on the right hand side and then click Connect Data. You should see the data from the first cell of the first sheet pop up. Basically you should see the text from that first page pop up. As someone who cooks about 95% of their meals at home, and no, that's not an exaggeration. 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Go to hellofresh.com byt10fm to get 10 free meals plus a free Zwilling knife which is $144.99 value on your third box. This offer is only valid while supplies last free meals applied at discount on your first box for new subscribers only and varies by plan. For the last few years I've been using Notion to basically organize my entire life. It's so much more than just a to do list app, it's truly a one stop shop for organizing any area of your life or business. And it's not just great at organization, it's also great at automations as well. There's so many complex things that you can do and build that can happen automatically and instantly within Notion. And now for the first time, they are introducing Notion AI Agents. The new Notion Custom Agents will allow you to automatically perform advanced tasks without you even having to lift a finger. For example, I built a Notion custom agent that automatically pulls pulls the link to any reel that I have posted and then it pulls out the text that I say or the text on the screen in the first few seconds of the reel. Basically it pulls out my hook and then it's able to look at how that post performed and compare it to the hook, which allows me to see which hooks are actually working so that I can reuse them and tweak them for future reels. Notion is an AI powered connected workspace for teams. Notion brings all of your notes, docs and projects into one space that just works. It's seamless for flexible, powerful and with AI built in, you spend less time switching between different apps and tools and more time creating great work. Now with Notion's custom agents. Busy work that used to take hours or let's be honest, didn't really get done at all runs itself. The easiest way to think about the difference between a custom agent and normal AI is that normal AI requires you as the human to prompt it. But custom agents work for you 247 behind the scenes without you having to lift a finger. But don't just take my word for it. Notion is used by more than half of Fortune 500 companies and some of the fastest growing companies in the world, like OpenAI, the company behind Chat GPT. Try custom agents now at notion.com forward/BYT that's all lowercase notion n O-T-I-O-N.com forward/BYT to try custom agents today and when you use my link, you're supporting our show again. Notion.com byt just click on that and then click on the button that says continue in the bottom left and then press the button that says create 49 or 50 or however many you actually ended up making designs. Then that'll take a few seconds to set up and then a little pop up will appear at the top and you can press the button that says View Design to take you to all of your content. What we essentially just did was create 50 different Instagram Reels that currently don't have any videos, but they have the text on the screen and they have the audio in the background. Now what we're going to do is we're going to add the videos, those little B roll clips to each of those individual frames and we're basically done to do this. Step number 12 is to click on the button that says Uploads and then find all of those B roll videos that you just uploaded and then one by one just drag them onto the screen, resize them so that they fit appropriately, and then step 13 is to one by one drag them onto the screen, resize them so that they fit appropriately. And you may have to resize the text because sometimes it might have a three sentence text block, a one sentence text block, and so it might just not look the same or look proportionally formatted. So you might have to play around with it a little bit to make sure that it looks nice, but then you're basically done. All you have to do from there is press the share button and then make sure that it is set as download pages as separate files. That way you're going to get 50 different files, 50 different videos as your export, rather than like one video of each of these individual Clips, like playing back to back, you don't want that. So just make sure you press download pages as separate files and then you can repeat this exact same process for the other two Google sheets for the remaining 100 text blocks that ChatGPT created for you. And at the end of this, you'll have 150 different videos that you can post as trial reels onto your Instagram. Now, to take it a step further, the final step that I would recommend doing is using Metricool, which is my favorite scheduling tool, to schedule your trial reels. Since trial reels launched In December of 2024, I've been saying that the biggest downside, the biggest negative for trial reels is that you can't schedule them. You had to just remember to manually post them all yourself. And then a few months later, Adam Mozeri, the head of Instagram, is like, we're working on a way to schedule trial reels. We wanted to make sure that people would use them first, and now we're working on a way to schedule them. No offense, but Instagram, slow Instagram's very glitchy. I don't know when or if they will ever give us the ability to schedule trial reels. So in the meantime, what I'm doing and what I recommend you do is use a third party tool such as metricool to schedule these trial reels. If you schedule five trial reels per day using the 150 trial reels that you just created, you basically have 30 days worth of trial reels that you now don't even have to think about. That means that you'll have to do this process at maximum 12 times this entire year. And you'll get the most juice possible from squeezing Instagram trial reels. You'll get better results, the best results possible, by uploading every single day. And of course, if you ever do have something that you want to just genuinely trial, you want to test out, you want to post as a trial reel and see how it does, you can always substitute that in and take out one of these so that you just have even more posts ready to go for the future. Thank you so much. And as always, happy networking. Sam.