How to Add Text to Instagram Reels

Adding text to your Instagram Reels is one of the most effective ways to stop the scroll and keep viewers hooked. Not only does it make your content accessible to people watching with the sound off, but it also helps you tell a better story, emphasize key points, and drive your audience to take action. This guide will walk you through exactly how to add, customize, and time your text overlays for maximum impact.

The Step-by-Step Guide to Adding Text to Reels

Let's start with the fundamentals. The Instagram app gives you a powerful set of tools to add and style text directly within the Reels editor. Follow these simple steps to get your message on screen.

1. Open the Reels Editor and Add Your Video

First things first, open the Instagram app and swipe right or tap the plus (+) icon at the bottom of the screen and select "Reel." You can either record a new video by holding down the record button or upload a pre-recorded video or photo from your camera roll by tapping the icon in the bottom-left corner.

Once your clips are in the editor, tap "Next" to move to the main editing screen where you can add music, stickers, and, of course, text.

2. Access the Text Tool

On the main editing screen, look for the row of icons at the top right. The text tool is represented by an "Aa" icon. Tap it to open the text editor and bring up your keyboard. This is where the magic begins.

3. Type Your Text and Customize its Appearance

Go ahead and type out your first line of text. As you type, you'll notice a control panel appears with several customization options. Let's break them down:

• Fonts: At the bottom of the screen, you'll see a slider with different font styles. Swipe through to find one that matches your video's aesthetic and branding. Instagram offers a variety of fonts, from clean and modern to playful and script-like.
• Color: Tap the color wheel icon at the top of the screen. You can choose from a preset palette of colors or use the eyedropper tool to select a color directly from your video. This is great for creating a cohesive, branded look.
• Background/Highlight: To the left of the color wheel is the text background button. Tapping it will cycle through different background styles, such as a solid color block or a slightly transparent highlight. This is incredibly useful for making your text stand out against a busy background.
• Alignment: The icon with lines on the left side of the screen controls your text alignment - left, center, or right.
• Animation: The icon to the right of the font slider makes your text dynamic. You can make it fade in, type out letter by letter, or grow onto the screen. This adds a professional touch and helps draw the viewer’s eye.

Once you're happy with how your text looks, tap "Done" in the top-right corner.

4. Position and Resize Your Text

After you tap "Done," you'll be taken back to the main editor. Your text now acts like a sticker. You can:

• Move it: Press and hold the text box to drag it anywhere on the screen.
• Resize it: Use two fingers to pinch and zoom, making the text larger or smaller.
• Rotate it: Use two fingers to twist it to the desired angle.

Timing is Everything: How to Edit Text Duration

Having text just appear for the entire length of your Reel is rarely what you want. The real power comes from making text snippets appear and disappear at precise moments to sync with your audio or on-screen actions. Here’s how to do it.

1. Open the Timeline Editor

After you’ve added your first text box, you’ll notice a small representation of it appear at the bottom of the screen above your video timeline. This is your "text clip" or "text chip." Tap on it, or tap the "Edit clips" button in the bottom left, to open the full video timeline editor.

2. Adjust the Timing

In the timeline view, you'll find each piece of text you've added as its own separate bar or track. To change when a specific text box appears and for how long, simply tap on its bar. A yellow frame will appear around it.

• To change the start time, drag the left handle of the yellow frame to the exact point in the video where you want the text to first appear.
• To change the end time, drag the right handle to the point where you want it to disappear.

You can line it up perfectly with a beat drop in the music, a narration point, or a specific visual cue. Play back your Reel to check the timing, and adjust as needed until it feels just right. There's no limit to how many individual text boxes you can add, so you can easily create pop-up effects, sequential sentences, or fast-paced subtitles.

Example: Imagine a Reel showing a three-step skincare routine. You can have a text box that says "Step 1: Cleanse" appear for the first 5 seconds, followed by "Step 2: Moisturize" for the next 5, and "Step 3: SPF!" for the final part of the video. Each part appears and disappears right on cue.

Creative Strategies for Using Text in Your Reels

Knowing how to add text is only half the battle. Knowing why and when to use it is what separates good Reels from great ones. Here are some strategies to elevate your content.

Use Text for Subtitles and Accessibility

A huge portion of users watch Reels with the sound off. If your video relies on someone talking, you're losing a massive audience without on-screen text. Adding subtitles or captions makes your content accessible and immediately understandable to everyone, regardless of whether they have their volume up or have a hearing impairment.

While you can use Instagram's auto-caption sticker for this, manually adding key phrases as stylized text often looks better and gives you more creative control over the pacing and emphasis.

Tell a Story and Build Intrigue

Use text to hook your viewers within the first three seconds. Phrases that create curiosity are incredibly effective at keeping people watching.

• "You won't believe what happened next..."
• "The #1 mistake people make when..."
• "Wait for the surprise at the end!"

These openers create an "information gap" that makes viewers want to stick around to see the payoff. You can also use text to provide narration or context that isn't obvious from the visuals alone.

Emphasize Key Information

Is your Reel an educational tutorial or a Top 5 list? Use text overlays to highlight the most important takeaways. This serves two purposes: it helps viewers who are scanning quickly understand the value of your video, and it reinforces the information for those watching closely. Bullet points, numbered lists, or bolded keywords are great for this.

Drive Action with a Clear Call-to-Action (CTA)

Your Reel isn't finished until you've told people what to do next. A simple on-screen text CTA can dramatically increase engagement and conversions.

• "Comment 'YES' if you agree!"
• "Save this post for later."
• "Follow me for more tips like this."
• "Shop the look - link in bio!"

Placing your CTA as on-screen text, especially near the end of the video, ensures nobody misses it. It removes any guesswork and tells your audience exactly how you want them to engage.

Common Text Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)

While text is a powerful tool, a few common slip-ups can hurt your Reel's performance. Keep these in mind.

• Putting Text in the "No-Go Zones": Keep your text away from the very bottom and the right side of the screen. Instagram overlays your username, the caption, and engagement icons in these areas, and your text will be blocked. Keep it centered a little higher up to be safe.
• Unreadable Font and Color Choices: A fancy script font might look pretty, but if it’s hard to read, people won't try. Prioritize clarity over complex style. Always choose a text color that highly contrasts with your video background, and don't be afraid to use the text highlight feature to make it pop.
• Text Overload: Don't try to cram an entire paragraph onto the screen at once. Reels are a fast-paced format. Use short, scannable phrases that can be read in a second or two. If you have more to say, break it up into multiple, timed text clips.
• Blinking-Fast Text: Make sure your text stays on-screen long enough for an average person to read it comfortably. A good rule of thumb is to read it out loud yourself twice before deciding it has enough screen time. If you can’t, it’s too fast.

Final Thoughts

Mastering the text tool in Instagram Reels is a game-changer for creating content that connects, informs, and entertains. By following these steps to add, time, and stylize your text overlays, you can significantly enhance your video’s readability, accessibility, and overall engagement, turning passive viewers into an active community.

Once you’re in a good rhythm of creating powerful Reels, planning and visualizing a month's worth of content can feel just as complicated. To help with the chaos of managing all our social accounts at once, we built Postbase. We designed it from the ground up to handle short-form video formats flawlessly - a feature that feels like an afterthought in many older tools was our starting point. Our visual calendar makes it simple to plan your entire content schedule across TikTok, Reels, and Shorts at a glance.