🎥 Do the Reels Collab - And here’s the reasons why you should.

In this week's Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 229 - Do the Reels Collab, we're hypin' up the marketing behind the Blind Baker Reels Collab on September 26 (next Friday - you can register here).

🎥 This cookie collab is different from the others we've run this year for 1 simple reason: it's video-based. 

Instead of posting an image of a logo-turned-cookie for the Main Street Collab or posting a selfie like we did for the Meet the Baker Collab, this Blind Baker Collab has bakers recording themselves.

✍️ Here's the breakdown - participants in this cookie collab with blindfold themselves and hit RECORD as they pipe a jack-o'-lantern onto a white iced circular sugar cookie (I’ll provide an inspo pic).

Then, on September 26th at 11:00 AM EST, bakers will post that video to their Instagram using the hashtag #SCMCollabCircle (note the 2 L’s in collab) and spend the next hour engaging with other Reels. 📼 Instagram converts all videos to Reels, so all ya gotta do is upload the video, add the caption, and post.

📉 But this Blind Baker Collab will be the lowest attended cookie collab we host this year. Why? Because folks hate recording themselves on video. But in a video-first social media sphere, this is the piece of content that will push the needle for your post reach. 

🤳 It's a Reels world, and we're just livin' in it. 

Vertical videos are the marketing flavor of the month, and based on TikTok's extreme popularity over the last Covid-confined 5 years, it's not looking like it's going to let go of the limelight anytime soon. 

Video (all video, not just vertical video) should be a part of your marketing content creation schedule each week because...

• 📹 Watchability - Our audience prefers to digest content via video versus text on a web page.

• 📹 Conversions - Adding a marketing video to a landing page can increase conversions by over 80%.

• 📹 User Generated Content - 84% of consumers have been convinced to buy a product or service after watching a brand's video.

• 📹 Search Engine Optimization - Videos can rank separately from web pages and also can help web pages rank higher in search engines.

🤔 Consider your own social media habits as an end user. 

Do you find yourself stopping for interesting videos? Check the stats in your business Instagram profile - how many people are your videos reaching versus your static image posts? If your data is anything like Sugar Cookie Marketing's Instagram, Reels are winning when it comes to discoverability (being found by accounts that don't follow you yet). 

So - yes, you should stick your neck (and selfie stick) out there this week and give this upcoming Reels collab a shot, and here's why:

📱 1. Meta is pushing videos more to compete with TikTok

TikTok is growing, and Facebook knows it. Meta (parent company of Facebook and Instagram) has slowed the reach of image-based content to favor video-based Reels instead (Reels = Meta's branding of TikToks).

📊 "Meta's user growth, while still strong, is more established and showing a slower rate of expansion compared to TikTok. Facebook's monthly active user growth was a 3.44% year-over-year increase, while daily active user growth was around 5.1% (Cropink, 2025)."

📱 2. Reels are recommended more than stagnant posts on Instagram.

What used to be an image-based platform, Reels paved the way for vertical video content to compete with the ever-popular TikTok. As a result, image content has been pushed aside to favor the reach of videos on Instagram. 

🖼  "Reels have a significantly higher reach rate than image or carousel posts. According to a study by Socialinsider, Reels have an average reach rate of 30.81%, which is more than double the rate for carousels (14.45%) and single images (13.14%). (Socialinsider, 2025; Statusphere Blog, 2025)."

If I told you that you could post a video and reach double the number of people if you posted an image, would you post a video? Yes - as a good marketer, you would. Which is why you should try this Reels challenge. 

📱 3. Reels are a better way to connect YOU to your audience.

Statistics aside, your audience wants to connect with you - which is why this Reels collab focuses on you, the baker, rather than your skill set (we don't expect anyone to pipe a perfect pumpkin whilst blind folded). 

The goal of this collab is to put a face to a name and to a video. People love seeing people. 

👩👱👴👵 "Georgia Institute of Technology and Yahoo Labs researchers looked at 1.1 million photos on Instagram and found that pictures with human faces are 38 percent more likely to receive likes than photos with no faces. They’re also 32 percent more likely to attract comments. The study is one of the first to examine how photos with faces drive engagement on large-scale, image-sharing communities. "

📱 4. Our own experience with the taste test series.

Anecdotal evidence also supports the "Reel reach" theory. Corrie recently completed a 25-day series on Instagram using Reels to run a "freshness test" on her heat-sealed cookies. Each day, she recorded a minute-long video snackin' on a cookie. As dumb as that sounds, the content proved to be one of the highest-reaching video series we've ever posted.

And what's better? Your competition likely isn't using video-based content either. So the sooner you adapt, the more you carve out your niche in a crowded industry. 

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Take our word for it = Reels really work. 

So - are you in for the Reels Collab on September 26th? ✅ Register here.

👂 Snag this podcast on any major podcast player (Spotify, Apple Music, Audible, Amazon Music, or watch it on YouTube) by searching for Baking it Down Podcast - Episode 229 - Do the Reels Collab.