Instagram creators can now test new content formats and storytelling styles without showing them to their followers.
While Instagram is a place for exploring new content, creators often face an invisible pressure to stick to their format to please their followers. As a result, many creators refrain even from trying out new content formats, storytelling styles, or topics to prevent the risk of losing existing followers. Instagram launched Trial Reels on Friday last week to address this roadblock and offer a silent testing ground with real-time feedback opportunities.
Trial Reels on Instagram allow users to experiment with new ideas and gain real-world insights on whether their content resonates with general audiences on the platform. These audiences are separate from followers, and the trial reels are not shown to followers by default.
Existing followers will not see Trial Reels on their timeline or the creator’s profile. However, they can still view the trial reel if a non-follower sends it to them through DM or story shares. Other ways of trial reels getting exposed to the existing followers are viewing pages that contain content from the same location, audio, or filter used in the trial reel.
“We heard from creators that they just don’t always feel comfortable or they’re reluctant to experiment with different types of content because they’ve built up a follower base and they want to make sure they don’t alienate it. We hear from fashion creator who maybe wants to branch into a music career, but they’re kind of scared because their followers have gotten used to getting outfits of the day, and so if they’re posting a video of themselves singing, they’re worried that they might turn those people off,” said Ashley Alexander, Instagram VP and Head of Product Management.
Instagram also published a Note for creators stating, “Trial reels can take longer to gain views because we're finding non-followers who will enjoy the content. They are treated separately from your other reels in our ranking systems, so they shouldn't impact the performance of your regular reel content.”
Users will get insights on the trial reel’s performance within 24 hours of posting it. If the creator realizes that a certain test reel is performing well, they can choose to share it with their followers. Creators can manually share the trial reel by clicking View trial insights and tapping the Share With Everyone button. They can also automate the process by tapping ‘How it works’ under the Trials toggle, then turning on ‘Share to everyone automatically’ and saving the settings. With this enabled, the trial reels will get automatically published for all after 72 hours, and these settings get applied to all reels unless changed manually.
