Reels that are entertaining, relatable, and creatively made tend to go viral on Instagram. Humor, surprise, and emotion are key elements for viral reels.
Types of Viral Reels
Humorous Reels
Funny and hilarious reels have high potential to go viral. People love to laugh and will eagerly share comedy reels that make them chuckle or burst out loud. Memes, jokes, funny reactions, and comedy sketches tend to spread quickly if they strike the right humorous chord.
Adding an unexpected twist of humor can also make an ordinary reel go viral. Even simple everyday activities and conversations can get millions of views if presented in a witty, amusing way.
Surprising Reels
Reels that have an element of surprise get widely shared as they spark curiosity and interest. Surprise reveals, plot twists, shocking facts, unexpected endings, and unbelievable moments make reels highly shareable.
Using clickbait titles or thumbnails that tease the surprise helps gain more eyeballs. But the surprise should be real and delivered within the first few seconds so as not to disappoint viewers.
Nostalgic Reels
Reels that make people feel nostalgic and remind them of their childhood or past have viral potential. Music, movies, celebrities, products, fashions, and pop culture references from the past ignite a warm fuzzy feeling of nostalgia.
Millennials love nostalgic content as it reminds them of their childhood and youth. Gen Z also enjoys recognizable retro elements as they explore past decades.
Behind-the-Scenes Reels
A sneak peek behind the scenes of glamorous events, places, and lifestyles satisfies viewer curiosity and can make reels go viral. People are fascinated by glimpses of red carpet events, luxury vacations, celebrity weddings, fancy restaurants, and exotic locations.
Candid behind-the-scenes reels feel intimate and exclusive, making followers hungry for more insider access and likely to share.
Emotional Reels
Reels that pull at the heartstrings through inspiring stories, touching moments, and emotional content tend to be widely watched and shared. Viewers connect with reels that make them experience feelings of joy, motivation, hope, pride, admiration, and connection.
Heartwarming reunions, unexpected acts of kindness, brave people overcoming challenges, and cute baby moments often strike an emotional chord with many.
Tips for Creating Viral Reels
Follow Trends
Making reels based on popular trends is a proven way to create viral content. Keep an eye out for rising challenges, audios, hashtags, and meme formats rippling across Instagram.
Quickly jump on trending bandwagons in the initial stage when curiosity and engagement around the trend are high. Put your unique spin on the trend before it gets saturated.
Use Hot Audios
Music and audios that are going viral present a great opportunity for piggybacking. Using the same viral audios and sound bites will make it easy for others who liked that audio to also find and share your reel.
Repurposing trending audios by lip-syncing, reacting, or using them creatively in your own niche can help reach a wider audience hungry for that viral meme sound.
Collaborate with Micro Influencers
Partnering with micro influencers in your niche to co-create reels can help boost discoverability and engagement. Their followers are likely to also be interested in your content and will help spread it wider.
Collaborations feel fun and fresh. The combined follower bases will be keen to see two creators team up for viral reel magic.
Optimize Your Reels
Fine-tuning reels for maximum impact improves their odds of going viral. Keep reels short, snappy, and addictively watchable. Use eye-catching captions, titles and cover images.
Add relevant hashtags so your reels surface when people search for trending topics. Tag any featured accounts to alert their followers.
Encourage Sharing
Explicitly inviting viewers to share and tag others makes it more likely for your reels to spread wider. Asking people to like, share, comment if they enjoyed the reel gives them a call to action.
Rewarding audience engagement with giveaways, contests or asking to be tagged if they recreate or duet your reel also keeps the momentum going.
Examples of Viral Reel Types
Humorous
Comedic reels with hilarious situations, punchlines, or funny reactions. Memes, jokes, and sketch comedy reels that tickle the funny bone.
Surprising
Reels with shock value elements like plot twists, unexpected reveals, secrets exposed, amazing facts or skills. Cliffhanger endings that leave viewers pleasantly stunned.
Nostalgic
Blasts from the past using retro music, fashion, celebrities, brands, toys, food and pop culture. Throwback posts that remind people of beloved childhood memories.
Behind-the-Scenes
Rare sneak peeks into fancy celebrity weddings, red carpet events, exotic vacations, concerts, movie sets and more glimpses of glamorous worlds.
Emotional
Heartwarming moments, inspiration stories, brave people overcoming challenges, animals bonding with humans, cute babies. Reels that make you shed happy tears.
Avoiding Common Mistakes
While creating viral reels may seem easy, many common pitfalls can hamper your chances of success. Here are some mistakes to avoid:
Forcing Virality
Trying too hard to manufacture virality often backfires. Avoid clickbait titles, spammy captions, overused audios, and other tactics that seem overly gimmicky, staged or forced.
Focus on creating authentic content with genuine entertainment value. Let virality happen organically.
Chasing Old Trends
Jumping late on outdated trending topics will get little traction. Repurposing audios or memes long after they’ve peaked will seem stale rather than viral-worthy.
Stay on top of the latest emerging trends and timely topics to maximize the viewing buzz.
Copying Successful Reels
Replicating reels that are already hugely popular rarely works. The novelty is gone and viewers will skip such copycat content.
Take inspiration from viral hits but always add your own original twist.
Ignoring Your Niche
Viral attempts that have no connect to your brand or niche seem inauthentic. For example, a makeup artist trying irreverent comedy could confuse followers.
Ensure viral content aligns well with your niche and brand identity. Leverage your unique personality and strengths.