Reels
Short vertical videos of your truck and products, with music and sound effects, your text and logo added cleanly on top, approved by you before they post.
A reel is a short vertical video (8 to 15 seconds) made for one brand. The Marketing Director plans the shots from your real truck and product photos, a video is made from that plan, and CurbsideOps adds your text, your logo and an end card on top. Like every draft, it waits for your approval before it posts anywhere.
Making a reel
- From a draft: on a card in Post drafts, click Make a reel from this post.
- From the calendar: set a campaign post's Format to Reel. Click Make reel to make it now, or leave it and it is made on the post's day. See Campaigns.
- From an idea: click Make reel on one of the Marketing Director's ideas.
- From Telegram: ask the assistant, for example "make a reel for Saturday's festival".
A reel takes about 3 to 5 minutes. You can close the page: progress shows at the top of Post Drafts under Reels in progress, and the finished reel lands there and on Telegram. If it takes longer than usual, the card says it is still working.
Reviewing the shot list
When Review the shot list before rendering is on for the brand, a reel you start in the portal stops for your OK first. You see the plan, the Text on screen and the End card (with your logo), and you can edit the words before the video is made. The card shows the cost in credits before you start. Ask for a different plan gets a new one.
Reels started from Telegram or the campaign calendar never wait for this step.
Any date, time, price or place in the text must match your calendar and menu, and customer names are kept out. If something does not match, you are asked to change it.
What makes a reel different
- No voices. Reels never have speech, narration or singing. The soundtrack is instrumental music and sound effects you would hear at the truck, made to fit the video. If the soundtrack cannot be made, the reel comes without sound rather than failing.
- Text and logo are added afterwards. Video models scramble letters, so the video itself never contains words or logos. CurbsideOps places your text and your real logo on top, so they are always spelled and drawn right.
- The end card fades in. Your logo, headline, tagline and call to action fade in over the last seconds of the video, so the reel keeps moving to its last frame.
- Food safety is built in. Every reel is planned with gloved hands, each guest getting their own fresh cup, and nobody climbing on the truck, and it uses your own cup from your product photos. Each finished video is checked frame by frame. A serious problem is fixed by making the video again at no cost to you, and anything else is noted on the draft card and the Telegram message for you to look at.
Cost
Reels use AI Credits, and you are charged only when the reel is ready. A reel that is cancelled or does not finish costs nothing. You can cancel a reel until the video starts being made.
Regenerate on a reel makes a new reel from the same idea and is charged again when ready.
Your brand's reel style
Each brand's settings have a Marketing tab with a Reels and weekly ideas section:
- Energy: Calm, Upbeat or High energy.
- Text on screen: No text on screen, A line or two or Up to four lines.
- Star of the reel: The truck, The products or The people.
- Length, Music feel and Avoid (things never to show).
- Review the shot list before rendering.
Brands on a library creative policy get reels that respect it: gentle camera or background motion for Library photo + AI text, and a slow pan and zoom over the photo with text for Library photo only (no AI).
Publishing
Approve a reel the same way as an image. It posts to every connected platform that takes video, such as Instagram Reels, TikTok, Facebook Reels and YouTube Shorts. Platforms that do not take video, such as Google Business Profile, are skipped, and the card says so. TikTok posts are labeled as made with AI, and you are asked to confirm before a TikTok post goes out.
A few at a time
To keep things fast for everyone, only a few reels can be in progress at once for your account, with a daily limit. If you hit it, try again later.
Still stuck? Email support@curbsideops.com or use Report an Issue in the portal. Checked against CurbsideOps 1.105.4.
Campaigns
A calendar of holiday, food-day and seasonal posts with captions written ahead, images made on the day, and publishing held to the time you set.
Marketing ideas
The Marketing Director suggests what to post each week from your own calendar, sales, reviews and local events, and finds nearby organizations that could book you.