Case: $1054 from Instagram Reels on OnlyFans. A guide to working with short videos on social media

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Who it is for

1. webmasters
2. affiliates

Reels are short videos on Instagram, with a monthly audience of 2.23 billion users in 2024. Among them, 169 million are Americans. Reels is an ideal traffic source for the OnlyFans vertical; it just requires understanding the short video algorithms. In this article, we’ll show how to work with Instagram Reels using Face Swap, discuss posting rules, and present a case of earning $1054 in 2 months.

Choosing an offer and getting started

If you don't have your own OnlyFans model, go and choose one on OnlyTraffic, as it is the only OnlyFans affiliate program with great functionality on the market.

Since we’ll be working through Face Swap, it’s important to choose the model's appearance correctly so that the neural network can "swap" the face without visual defects. It’s crucial that the model in the source video closely resembles the model whose face will be replaced. For instance, a blonde with a bob cut and tattoos in the second photo won’t work, as it’ll be impossible to find Reels with a similar-looking girl, unlike the model in the first photo.

The second important criterion when choosing an offer is the spam level of the model's page on OnlyFans with SFS posts. If there are many such posts in the profile, it's not worth driving traffic to it at the moment, as fans simply won't subscribe to the page, making it harder to earn money.

It’s also important to choose a profile with good message handling by chatters. Your earnings from revshare depend on them, as they are the ones who communicate with members and sell them content. There is a function to check the latest messages to verify the quality of their work yourself:

Pay attention to how fans respond to the welcome message, how quickly they do so, and whether there is any redirection to a paid page or other profiles of models from the agency. Otherwise, you might just waste traffic and get nothing in return.

After selecting five offers and creating campaigns for them, it's time to prepare driving traffic.

Setting up Instagram accounts

To begin, you’ll need a standard Android or iOS phone. Set the language to English and the region to the USA to avoid having your reels recommended in Latin America. Create 5-7 accounts using different email addresses. Do not provide a phone number, in case you need to recover access or resolve any issues. If you have the expertise, it's better to register accounts using an antidetect and proxies.

Next, leave the new accounts to "rest" for 2-3 weeks. Alternatively, you can buy ready-made accounts if you don't want to farm your own.

Setting up the Instagram account

Now we need to set up the accounts. This is straightforward: no hints of adult content, OnlyFans, flirting, or anything similar. Then, switch the account to business and set the type to creator.

Set up Beacon, Linktree, AllMyLinks, or direct redirects. There are many ways to do this, but in this case, we're using Beacon because it allows managing multiple accounts for free:

Content preparation

Start by finding Instagram accounts of arbitrageurs who promote OnlyFans, or you can use videos directly from the models’ TikTok accounts. To find such videos, you can go here, like and view all the Reels; after that, your recommendation feed will be filled with similar clips. All that’s left is to choose the ones that resemble your model in appearance.

Now let's move on to preparing videos for the campaign:

Download all photos and videos of the model;
Perform face swapping using Face Swap;
Run the resulting photos and videos through a neural network to enhance quality.

The higher the quality of the content, the broader the reach on Instagram. Combining Face Swap and neural network enhancement increases reach by 30%, based on our experience.

While the accounts are on standby, we prepare all the new content in the following manner: 90 photos for carousel format and 30 reels per account. Thus, we get 500 photos and 150 reels per 5 models in total.

Posting rules

Don't get too caught up with the videos: often the face might slightly blur due to Face Swap — it’s nothing to worry about. It can even positively impact reach; perhaps people rewatch such videos more often, pushing them into recommendations.

You should post every day during peak times for the USA. Hashtags hardly affect results, but long descriptions can have a positive impact on reach.

Account promotion

This case is about playing the long game. Accounts need to be developed and promoted to increase their reach and engagement under posts. Without purchasing advertising at the start, posts will only gather 10-20 views. Advertising can be purchased in chats or on specialized platforms like Gigsocial.

Also, don't forget to be vigilant because there's a lot of scams here, so you need to be careful. Check the screenshots for seams, or better yet, ask for a video screenshot. Don't agree immediately to the offered price; negotiate for a trial. Sometimes service providers agree to drop the price by 2-3 times.

Buy advertising from accounts with an audience of over 70% from the USA:

Advertising in Reels and profile tagging didn't work well and brought almost no results. Users simply swipe through them and don't visit the profile. The best approach is advertising in other models' Stories or tagging under photos/carousels.

The main goal is to gain organic activity on the account; then Instagram will provide its own reach. Most importantly, ensure the account doesn't shift to Latin America; it's very difficult to get back to the USA from there.

Instagram algorithms

The best-performing content for us were carousels with several photos and regular photos with long descriptions that didn't hint at adult. Also, initially, your account may receive complaints, so check the visibility settings and strikes from the social network. If any photo or video receives a complaint for sexual content, delete it within 24 hours. This way, your account won't be banned, and there won't be a shadow ban on it.