What Getting 2.4M Views on an Insta Reel Taught Me About Creativity
I was just minding my own business, scrolling Instagram feed one casual evening. Everything went as usual, nothing extraordinary.
And then I started noticing the red-hearted notification on the bottom reappear with an unusual frequency. Every second there was a person who liked my new reel. Literally every second.
I went into the stats to see what was going on — apparently, my reel got viral and was receiving more and more views with every passing minute.
Within two weeks, it went from 6,000 views to 2,4 million views.
2,4 million. How often do you receive that big of exposure online?
I wasn’t popular on Insta, nor did I have a big community of subscribers. But something clicked with this 6-second video that I created that people started viewing, liking, and noticing.
What was most pleasing about this whole reel situation is that other videos of mine started to get noticed too. Is there something more fascinating to a visual creator, get your works seen by that many people thanks to one little piece you did?
This unexpected growth, which also resulted in substantially increased following, got me ecstatic at first. I could do nothing and see people subscribing, liking, commenting, texting me in direct messages about how much they like my art and the style of my feed.
But somewhere in the back of my mind, a tiny voice would cautiously whisper: “Girl, this can’t last forever”.
And it didn’t, of course.
Another two weeks have passed, and the likes and the follows started to gradually decline. Until one day, my Insta went completely silent.
Although I could feel this coming, I couldn’t help but feel a slight disappointment. Though, as I always do, I decided to analyze it and learn a lesson for myself as a creator. Here goes:
One day you might start being seen, and your work may start getting recognized. You may even wake up famous if stars align in your favor.
But the funny thing is — the mere fact of you getting more exposure doesn’t mean you can relax, stop creating, and from the moment on relying only on this piece of art/content/whatever else as your only provider of growth.
The harsh truth is that you MUST keep doing the work. You must continue creating. You must go on with your journey and become even more inventive, innovative, and authentic.
Why?
Because exposure or fame don’t last. People crave new creations, new art, new writings, new videos, and so on.
This is especially true with online space and platforms like Instagram and TikTok: no one can confidently say that they know how the algorithms work.
Just because you went viral once doesn’t mean you’ll go viral next time. How reels and TikToks recommendations function is a mystery substance, so being presumptuous in thinking that you can just drop everything and enjoy the rays of lightspeed progress — well, I wouldn’t advise that.
The good news is that there is no limit to our creativity right now. You can always find something new to write about, a story to tell through photos, videos, paintings, talking — whatever your passion is.
We are living in absolutely magical times where everything is at our disposal. Everything can be easily reached, and the sources of inspiration are infinite. Use this to your benefit, brainstorm new ideas, test new formats, do the best you can to constantly be out there, and share your vision.
And remember: be ambitious and fearless. When it comes to being a creator, there is no other way than that. At the same time, there is no objective failure. Do what you do, test what you think should work, and see the result.
This mindset isn’t limited to a specific case of videomaking or photography, which inspired this article. It’s the same for all freelance writers out there, whether you write for Medium or other platforms or clients.
One article can get you views and pay well, but the key is to keep writing no matter what. One client will be happy with your work, another will never ask you to write for them ever again. Just because sometimes it doesn’t work out the way we want, doesn’t mean we should silence the creators inside ourselves.
Didn’t work? Fine, I’ll just try another approach. I’ll create another piece. I’ll repurpose the existing one. Test, analyze, brainstorm, test again, figure out the hidden tricks. Most importantly, enjoy the process and never stop being curious!
P.S. if you wanna see this crazy number on my reels for yourself and also get some visual inspiration from my other vids, check out my Insta here!
