As with every year-end, Instagram offers its users the opportunity to revisit the highlights of the past year. However, unlike previous editions, Instagram’s retrospective will not be published as a story. Instead, the photo-sharing platform has chosen to showcase Reels, its new video format. Here’s how it works.

Create a Summary of Your Year in a Reel

Are you familiar with Instagram’s retrospective? If not, every year at the end of December, Instagram creates a compilation of all the best photos you’ve posted on the platform. The algorithms then select the most memorable posts from the past year for you.

Of course, you can always modify this selection by removing or adding content of your choice. In fact, I strongly recommend taking the time to make a few adjustments. This will prevent you from coming across photos of your ex in your memories, for example. Once your retrospective is complete, all you have to do is click a button to share it with all your followers as a story. Learn how to publish an Instagram video from a video.

New Reel Templates Allow You to Create Your Own Retrospective

Now that you understand how Instagram’s retrospectives work, what you may not know yet is that for the new 2022 edition, Instagram has replaced the traditional story with its new short video format, the Reel.

  1. Launch the Instagram app on your smartphone
  2. Navigate to the platform’s homepage by clicking on the house-shaped tab
  3. Press the Reel button located at the bottom and center of your phone screen
  4. Click on the camera icon
  5. A new window will open with the 4 different Reel templates for creating your own Instagram retrospective
  6. Scroll through the different templates by swiping your finger from right to left
  7. Once you’ve selected the right template, click on the “Use this template” button
  8. Add the photos and videos of your choice
  9. Press “Next” to preview your year-end Reel retrospective
  10. If you’re not satisfied with the result, you can always modify the selected content
  11. Click “Next” again to view the final result
  12. Don’t forget to add captions, information about the people in the photos, or the names of the places where the scene takes place
  13. Press the “Share” button to display your Reel in your followers’ news feed and on your profile

Importantly, Instagram will start sending notifications and messages to encourage members to create their own summaries in the coming days. We know that this type of year-end summary is hugely popular on social media.

Spotify publishes its Wrapped every year in December, and the popularity of this type of retrospective remains strong. It includes a list of songs, artists, albums, and podcasts that Spotify members have listened to the most over the past 12 months.