How To Create Instagram Videos and Reels using Keynote or PowerPoint
I have previously documented my entire process for creating animated whiteboard explainers and product promo videos using Keynote. In this article, I am going to demonstrate how it can also be used to create Instagram videos and reels in just a few minutes, and without using any other tool.
A couple of weeks ago, I was working on a business presentation in Keynote, and I needed to add a quick demo video of the product to one of my slides.
To my surprise, I was able to add a video that I had shot on my iPhone, trim it, mute its volume, and animate it to show up inside an iPhone frame mockup with shadow and reflection, without having to use any other tool.
A couple of minutes later, I was also able to add animated text alongside the video to emphasize the demo steps, and a nice background image pattern that I found online.
When I played back that slide, it looked like a short promo video that was made by a professional marketing agency, despite the fact that it was done in less than 15 minutes.
That was when it hit me: I could use Keynote to create Instagram videos and reels for my business!
It was like having the best features from Photoshop, iMovie and Apple Motion in one tool that I already had and knew how to use.
I had tested many apps in the past, including Canva, inShot, etc., but none of them was powerful and flexible enough to deliver what I wanted.
Surprisingly, Keynote did!
Over the following weeks, I went from creating 2 mediocre social media videos per week to creating 3–5 professional-looking videos a day in-between other business tasks.
And I was actually having fun doing it 😃
I even used it to animate static images and export them as videos, and they got more likes that way.
To speed things up, I converted different post styles that I had created in Keynote into templates (master slides) that I could quickly customize with text, images and videos, and export it in under two minutes.
That helped me test different variations for posts and ads by simply switching the master slide applied to it, which only required a few seconds.
It also allowed me to add my brand to each post to prevent content theft, which was an ongoing nightmare for me up to that point.
If you’re struggling with creating social media videos, I highly recommend using Keynote or PowerPoint on your laptop, tablet or even you phone.
You will be happily surprised!
You can also use them to create YouTube promo videos for your product or service; all you need is to set the slide dimensions to whatever video resolution you’d like to export before you start.
And if you’re working with a team, you can use iCloud or OneDrive to collaborate with them.
Here is a preview of what an Instagram video post created in Keynote looks like:
And here is a preview of the Instagram post templates that I have created for Keynote.
They also work in PowerPoint!
Each post style includes 3 background variations: static color, image, and video.
And here are the steps required to create a new post using the templates in under 60 seconds in Keynote or PowerPoint:
- Double click the template file to create a new presentation. The presentation resolution is adjusted to a square aspect ratio.
- Create a new slide, and select the slide master/layout that fits your needs
- Edit the text on the slide, and select a different background color, image or video
- The default slide contains basic animation for text, video and shapes. You can use those default animations, or change them in the Animate tab
- Play the slideshow and tweak it until you have a good looking post
- Export the slide as image or video. You can also export it as animated GIF, but I don’t recommend that option since the file size is typically huge.
- Post it to your instagram
And that’s it. You have just created a professional looking Instagram post in under a minute using a tool that you already have and are familiar with.
You can download the templates here
Let me know if you have questions, feedback or special requests.
