On November 17th, 2023, I posted a Reel on Instagram that, over the course of the next three months, went on to receive 29.7k views.
How did this Reel become my most popular Instagram post to date, and whatever came from it? Let’s take a look.
What Was the Reel About, Anyway?
Hopefully, the Instagram post feature is working on my website again, so you can view the Reel for yourself above. If not, you can view it here, too.
Basically, I used this Reel to point out something I experienced early on in my career as an indie contemporary Christian YA author. While researching comp titles on Goodreads or Amazon, or even doing research about the genre, I noticed that most books in the genre gravitated towards being “squeaky clean” and didn’t include tough topics, as to not be offensive. Since God has led me to write Christian YA books that center around tough topics such as mental health, anxiety, bullying, church hurt, abusive relationships, etc., my books tend to challenge the status quo of my genre, and I made this Reel to encourage fellow Christian authors to not shy away from doing the same if God is calling them to write about tough topics.
Why Did It Get So Many Views?
If you’ve seen Reels by marketing experts on Instagram, there’s a lot of speculation surrounding why some Reels get more views than others. Did the Reel use a trending sound? Did I use a cool camera/editing trick that drew viewers in or kept them engaged? Did I, on happenstance, use the perfect combination of hashtags, or have an on-point caption?
I’ve been posting Reels on Instagram for a couple years now, and though I’m definitely not a marketing expert by any means, if I had to guess why this Reel got so many more views than my others, I’d say it was because of the caption that spoke of a taboo topic in the realm of Christian fiction, which resonated with more people than I realized. Because the Reel’s message resonated with others, it received more likes and comments, which the algorithm tends to like. I’m not sure if this is actually what caused the video to receive so many views, but that’s my guess.
Whatever Came From the Reel Receiving Almost 30k Views?
This is what shocked me the most.
Contrary to popular belief, just because an author has a Reel, or social media post of any kind, for that matter, get thousands of views, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll help them sell more books. In fact, reviewing my sales spreadsheet from the months the Reel was trending, there wasn’t a bump in sales at all.
Was that a bit of a let down? Honestly, yes, but at the same time, the Reel didn’t feature any of my books, so I can’t be too disappointed.
Especially since, according to the Reel’s insights, it brought me approximately 386 new followers (over a span of three months), of which many, due to the subject of the Reel, are likely to be readers who fall into my target audience.
What Can We Learn From This?
The main takeaway I got from this experience is that God will allow our content to reach the people who need it. Maybe, because of what the Reel was about, God felt it needed to reach these 29.7k people? Maybe He was trying to encourage both Christian authors, and Christian readers, to learn that we as Christians don’t need to let mainstream, secular fiction control the narrative on teaching teens and young adults on how to deal with tough topics? That’s what I’m choosing to believe. I don’t think anything happens by coincidence, so God had a reason for this video receiving those views, and I’m thankful He used me to spread this message.
Since this Reel’s views tapered off, my experience on Instagram has returned to normal. I still have under 2,000 followers. My other posts aren’t reaching anywhere near the amount of views or likes as that video. It didn’t magically make me a best-selling author overnight, and that’s why I felt the need to be transparent with y’all and share this post. I know I’ve seen Reels by other authors that have gone viral and have thought, they’re so lucky the algorithm likes them. I bet they’re hitting best-seller lists because of this, and I’m sure some of you reading this have had similar thoughts. The reality is, one post with thousands of views, the majority of the time, doesn’t make or break our careers. The ones that do are probably even more rare than that one viral post out of the hundreds of Reels I’ve posted. So if you’ve been stressing out over making the “perfect” Reels to sell more books, take a deep breath and relax, my friend. There is no perfect formula to “make it big” as an author or sell more books. We’re all trying to figure it out as we go along, and that’s why it’s called an author journey. ❤
Talk to Me, Arrowheads!
Have you ever experienced anything similar to this with one of your social media or blog posts? Share your experience in the comments!
Aim high, stay strong, and always hit your mark.
-Allyson 😀
Authoring Arrowheads 
That is a great takeaway you learned! Thank you for sharing it! My few and far between brushes with fame have had similar results when looking at the sales sheets. It takes a lot of ongoing trust to remember that God will deliver our work to the right audience. Great encouragement here!
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