Former Instagram employee goes viral on TikTok with tips to pump using ‘Reels’

Imagine having the recipe for success, step by step, to rock the Instagram.

It is not difficult to find those who try to sell the “magic formula” to get more likes, comments and views, but this time the promise comes from those who understand the business – literally.

Jackie Candelaria, a former Instagram employee, where she worked for eight years, went viral on TikTok – the famous “neighbor network” – by giving tips on how to grow on the platform’s video tool, Reels.

@jackiectiktok

EX Instagram employee here to share everything I know about growing on Instagram… which is a lot bc I spent 8 years of my life coaching creators and businesses on how to use IG so here ya go! #Instagram #instagramtips #instagramstories #instagramreels #instagramreel #IG #igreels #reels #reeltutorial #reelstiktok #reelstips #reelstip #creators

♬ original sound – candelaria.jackie

For her, one of the main guidelines to follow is to create original content, without watermarks from other platforms and, preferably, recorded and edited directly in the Instagram Reels tool.

Many people already “suspected” that using the TikTok watermark in videos, for example, would reduce engagement, but this had never been confirmed by Instagram until then.

Tips for “pumping” on Reels

Candelaria, whose job it was to curate content creators, listed some other tips in a series of videos. Check out:

• Shoot vertically, without borders and in high resolution;
• Be 90 seconds or less to be distributed and recommended on the “Explore” page;
• Try to engage the audience in the first three seconds, and then tell a story;
• Give preference to entertainment content that makes people laugh;
• Captions and hashtags are important to tell the algorithm what your content is about. The more specific it is, the better. The ideal is to use 3 to 10 hashtags;
• Videos must follow Instagram rules and cannot contain violence, nudity, inappropriate language, etc;
• Do not delete the content if it does not give immediate results. Videos can sometimes take three to four weeks to go viral;
• Don’t expect videos to perform the same way on Reels as they do on Tiktok – they are different ecosystems;
• Have patience and be confident with your Reels.

The first video posted by Jackie already has almost three million views and more than 140,000 likes.

In the comments, her more than 130,000 followers take the opportunity to clarify doubts such as “Why is it not possible to pause a reel?”, while others criticized the social network and said they missed when it was just for photos.