How to Make a Reel on Facebook
A normal Page video starts with your followers. A Reel starts with strangers, and that single difference changes how it should be made.
In the Facebook app, start a new post and choose Reels, or open the Reels tab and tap create. Record or upload vertical video, trim it, add audio or text if you want, write a short caption and share.
From a Page, post as the Page so the Reel carries the Page rather than your profile.
The important part is where it goes: Reels are distributed to people who do not follow you, which ordinary Page video largely is not.
That distribution difference is the whole reason to bother with the format.
A standard video posted by a Page is shown first to people who already follow the Page, and spreads only if they interact with it. A Page with few followers posting good video is a tree falling in an empty forest.
Reels are fed into a recommendation surface. The first viewers are mostly strangers, selected by what they watched before rather than by who they follow. That is why a new Page can get a large view count on a Reel and almost nothing on a standard upload the same week.
The cost of that reach is that the audience has no reason to be patient. A viewer who did not choose you decides in the first seconds, and the metric that governs whether the video keeps being shown is whether people keep watching.
So the craft is front-loaded. Say the thing immediately. Make the first frame legible as a thumbnail. Keep it short enough that it loops. None of that is a trick; it is what the format rewards because that is what the viewer behaves like.
Posting one, from phone or desktop
On the phone, start a post and choose Reels, or tap create inside the Reels tab. Record in the app or upload a clip you already have.
The editor offers trimming, text, stickers and audio. Audio from the Facebook library is cleared for use; audio you add yourself may not be.
On desktop, Meta Business Suite can publish and schedule Reels for a Page, which is the route to use for anything planned.
Check which account you are posting as before sharing. Posting a Page's Reel from your profile by accident is easy and cannot be moved afterwards.
Format and what it does to the video
Vertical, full screen. Anything else is letterboxed, and the bars eat the area the viewer is deciding on.
Shoot or export at a high enough bitrate that the re-encode survives. Facebook compresses every upload, and a soft source becomes a mushy Reel.
Keep the important text away from the edges. The caption, the profile name and the controls sit on top of the video and cover the corners.
Sound matters more than it does in feed video. Reels start with audio on.
What decides whether it travels
Retention first. How much of the video people watch, and whether they watch it twice, is the signal the system reads before anything else.
Then the interactions that cost something: shares and saves outrank likes, because they are evidence that the video was worth passing on.
Comments help, and replying to them helps more than posting another Reel the same hour.
What does not help is posting the same clip to several surfaces with another platform's watermark on it. Recycled video with a competitor's logo is the most reliable way to be shown to nobody.
Cross-posting from Instagram, and when not to
A connected account can publish a Reel to both places at once, which is convenient and mostly fine.
The exception is when the two audiences are different, which they usually are for a business. A Reel written for one can read as filler on the other.
Facebook's Reels audience skews differently from Instagram's, and the content that performs there is not always the content that performs here.
If you cross-post, at least rewrite the caption. The caption is the part the two platforms read differently.
Money, and what Reels can and cannot earn
Facebook has run several programs that pay for Reels, and they have changed name and terms more than once. Check what is currently offered in the Page's professional dashboard rather than trusting an article, including this one.
Eligibility sits on the Page and on the content, not on a single video going well.
Views alone have never been a payout. Every version of these programs has had eligibility rules, and most creators discover them after the fact.
The durable value of Reels for a business is reach to strangers, which turns into followers, which is a number you keep when a program ends.
Questions people ask about Facebook Reels
Do Reels reach people who do not follow me?
Yes. That is the point of the format. Reels are recommended to strangers, while ordinary Page video starts with existing followers.
Can I post a Reel from a computer?
Yes, through Meta Business Suite, which can also schedule them for a Page.
Does a watermark from another app hurt the video?
Yes. Reuploaded clips carrying another platform's watermark are demoted, and the effect is large enough to notice.
Should I cross-post Reels to Instagram?
It is allowed and convenient, but the audiences differ. At minimum, rewrite the caption for each one.
Why did my Reel get no views?
Usually retention: viewers left in the first seconds, so distribution stopped. Watermarks and music rights issues are the other two common causes.
Do Reels pay?
Only through whichever program Facebook is currently running, with its own eligibility. Check the Page's professional dashboard for what applies now.
Keep reading
- views on a Facebook video — A Reel that stalls in its first hour is rarely picked up later, and views on a Facebook video acts on that opening window.
- how long a Reel can run — Length changes what the format does with the video, and how long a Reel can run covers the ceiling and the useful range.
- what Facebook counts as a view — The view number under a Reel is a defined event, and what Facebook counts as a view says which one.