Another day, another new app you need to learn. Sometimes it feels like there’s too much you need to keep track of all at once. But here is why you shouldn’t ignore Instagram Edits, especially if you want to grow organically, or have been working on turning content creation into a full-time career (or fruitful side hustle). 

If you’re looking to master Instagram Edits, you’ve come to the right place.

In this guide, I’ll unpack everything you need to know about the app, from what Instagram Edits is, how to use it, and why it is a must if you’re taking growth and monetization on Instagram seriously.

Ready? Let’s dive in!

What is Instagram Edits?

Instagram Edits is a standalone, free video editing app by Instagram (Meta) specifically for creators. Simply put, this is Instagram’s answer to TikTok’s CapCut. It combines several helpful tools, from the video editing platform itself to tabs for capturing ideas, inspiration sourcing, recording clips, and post-launch analytics. All of which are housed under one app.

All you need to do is download it from your app store, sign in to your existing Instagram account to link it, and start exploring the app!

The 5 Main Tabs of Instagram Edits

Before I dive into how to use Instagram Edits to edit your Reels, along with why the Edits Insights offers deeper analytics for your Reels performance, let’s help you get comfortable with the lay of the land. Here’s a quick introduction to the 5 main tabs you’ll find on Instagram Edits.

Ideas

The Ideas tab (on the far left) is where you can capture thoughts and video concepts as soon as they pop up. It mimics your notes app and has a sticky note feel to it. This is helpful if you’re the type to come up with ideas on the go, but want an organized system to file them away instead of letting them get lost in your Notes App.

If you’re recording your Reels directly in the Edits app, specifically if you’re using your front facing camera to record, you can also use the sticky notes to write your scripts. That way, you can turn it into a teleprompter and read off your script while filming.

Inspiration 

Similar to your Reels Tab on Instagram, this is where you’ll browse through Reels and trending audio. The best part is that you can flag ideas and save them as inspiration for your next Reel. These saved Reels and audio clips will be automatically added to your Ideas tab.

Projects

This is your dashboard and the main editing area. You can easily scroll through drafts and finished Reels, as the name is clearly displayed at the bottom for easy organization and identification.

Recording

This is your standard camera feature, where you can film clips up to 10 minutes long from within the app. If you’ve added your script to the sticky notes feature, you can turn it into a teleprompter while recording.

Insights

This is where you’ll track your Reels analytics and engagement. It provides a more in-depth look into the performance of your Reels, but I’ll explain that further down the blog post.

How to Edit a Reel on Edits

Edits is user-friendly and easy to use. If you’ve been using CapCut or Premiere Rush for your short-form video editing, you’ll get comfortable with Edits quickly.

First, open Edits and head to Projects. Click the “+” button on the bottom right to start a new project and label it clearly for easy organization.

Import your clips to the video timeline. This is where you’ll split, reorder, or extract audio from your videos.

You can also add Music by clicking the “music” button, add additional text, voiceovers, captions, overlays, sound effects, stickers, and more.

Or if you’re a little more advanced and want to play with eye-catching visual effects, you can use the green screen, cut out effects, or AI-powered animations.

Once you’re done editing, you can preview, explore clean, watermark-less videos, and share your work directly to Instagram. 

Why You Should Use the Insights on Edits

Part of creating content that works is to understand and analyze your data. It’s why I encourage my students to create a report to track and digest the performance of their Reels. This is a must if you want to improve your content quality, double down on what works, and grow your account.

When it comes to your Reels’ performance, Edits provides a more robust analytics dashboard, including:

• Skip rate (as compared to your average)
• Average watch time 
• Like rate
• Share rate
• Comment rate
• Save rate
• And new followers from each specific Reel

It also provides you with the usual metrics, like views and reach. And it’ll give you the same data on your Trial Reels.

Wrapping Up

Instagram Edits isn’t just an editing app; it is your command center. By blending ideation, inspiration, creation, editing, and analytics in one place, it streamlines your production process so that you can create with clarity and agility.

Remember, Instagram always rewards early adopters, and Adam Mosseri (CEO of Instagram) has said that as of right now, editing your Reels on Edits will give you a boost in the algorithm, but it won’t last long.

In other words, this is the golden opportunity to become an early adopter, take advantage of this opportunity, and use Instagram Edits for your Reels-specific content creation.