What's New With Facebook Reels As Meta's TikTok Rival Goes Global
After keeping it limited to a handful of markets for a while, Meta is aggressively bringing Reels to Facebook with a host of new features in tow to keep creators as well as the audience engaged. Meta created Reels to capitalize on the short-form video phenomenon started by TikTok and pushed it to Instagram back in 2020. Despite being a blatant copy, it was a success and became the fastest-growing video format on the platform. So in a bid to milk the success, Meta ported the idea of 30-second Reels to Facebook.
The initial tests were limited to high-yield markets like India and the United States. In that duration, Facebook dived deep in its engagement tactics toolkit to reward creators. The move made sense back then and sounds even more desperate in 2022. The company lost users for the first time last quarter — and billions of dollars in its market value — while TikTok emerged as the most downloaded app worldwide in 2021. It looks like the desperation for engagement, staying relevant and making more ad money has finally reached a boiling point.
Meta has announced that Reels is expanding to Facebook users across 150 countries, alongside many new monetization tools and new places for the videos to appear for enhanced discovery. Starting with the latest tools, Reels on Facebook will now allow users to remix them, somewhat like the idea of duets on TikTok. Next in line is the extended length of Facebook Reels, which can now be of up to 60 seconds runtime, up from 30 seconds. Another beneficial feature that content creators will appreciate is the ability to save Reels as drafts, a feature that is already available on Instagram for both static and video content.
Facebook also has a clipping feature in the pipeline that Meta will roll out in the coming weeks. The video clipping tool will support both live and pre-recorded videos. The objective is to let users experiment with videos in different formats. YouTube also offers a similar feature, but it is only available via the creator dashboard. For regular users, YouTube has a Clips feature that allows them to select a short segment from a video between five to 60 seconds long and share it on social media or embed it as a clip. But offering new features for Facebook Reels is only one half of the equation, as Meta wants them to appear virtually everywhere on its bread-and-butter social media platform that started it all. For example, Meta says Reels can now be shared as Stories on Facebook. And interestingly, users can convert stories into Reels as well.
It is clear that Facebook wants to lower the effort barrier, letting users easily share the same content in whichever form and place they deem fit. Facebook Reels will also start appearing in Watch, the dedicated tab for videos where users can view, share and interact with content uploaded by creators. In the coming months, users will be able to create Facebook Reels directly from the Watch tab. YouTube also has a dedicated tab for watching its version of Reels called Shorts, and it also features a create button for instantly recording and uploading short videos. But Meta is going a lot deeper than YouTube. A dedicated Reels label that allows users to watch and create Facebook Reels will also appear at the top of the Feed. And in some countries, Facebook will soon start suggesting Reels in the Feed. Meta is leaving no stone unturned when it comes to pushing Reels to as many Facebook users as possible, and it just might pay rich dividends.
Source: Meta