Facebook has this week launched Instagram Reels its answer to the popular karaoke app TikTok, whose future remains uncertain in some countries.
Facebook has a long record — of bullying other rival platforms to either an aquisitions or adopting features and rolling them out to its billions of users worldwide in an effort to avoid being eclipsed by younger upstarts. They have been sometimes successful, sometimes not.
Instagram Reels enters the fray as TikTok, threatened with a ban by President Trump because of its Chinese ownership, which has to open negotiations to be acquired by Microsoft. A world where Reels must compete with a Microsoft-owned TikTok will present a very different challenge to Facebook than a world in which TikTok has been shut down in the U.S.
Just like TikTok, Instagram Reels is the first product Facebook has created that focuses more on creators than everyday users. Reels’ video distribution algorithm will resemble TikTok’s: users will see the most popular videos at the moment, rather than a selection tailored to their individual profile.
How Instagram Reels will be Implemented
The new product will be embedded within Instagram, so that the app’s 1 billion+ user base can tap into it and help it achieve wide adoption.
Instagram’s product team wanted to positioning Instagram camera around a few core formats. Stories is designed as more of a social feature — quick little snippets people want to share with their followers. Reels is designed with entertainment in mind, an area that Instagram wants to really focus on. Part of that focus includes the redesign of Instagram’s Explore page. There’ll be a dedicated hub for Reels. This is essentially Reels’ equivalent of the “For You Page” on TikTok, a place for creators to possibly go viral or find new followers.
Instagram Reels will allow users to create 15-second videos using editing tools that are embedded in Instagram’s camera, like a countdown clock, a timer, and a new align tool, which gives users an easy way to string together different video cuts. It will include music from a big library of titles that Instagram has recently licensed from music labels.
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The product will debut in over 50 countries on Wednesday, including the U.S., India, Brazil, France, Germany, the U.K., Japan, Australia, and others. Reels differs from TikTok thanks to Instagram’s augmented reality effects, which let users overlay images and filters onto their videos.
Reading between the lines
Reels gives Instagram an opportunity to tap into a new creative community, one that’s more focused on talent than the beauty-and-aesthetics topics that dominate Instagram today.
What creators like about TikTok is that they can amass huge audiences quickly if their video gains traction.
- Instagram says creators will be able to share Reels videos privately with their friends and followers via direct messages or on their Stories, but they also now have the opportunity to be discovered by Instagram’s massive audience within its Explore tab if they wish to do so and if their accounts are set to public.
- Reels videos will live in a dedicated space within the Explore tab called the Stage.
- Because Instagram doesn’t have a “share” button, it’s been hard for content on Instagram to go viral to lots of people fast.
Reels isn’t its own world like TikTok is or Vine was. It’s another thing to do on Instagram and another way to find entertainment beyond scrolling through Stories and our Feeds. Instagram is coming somewhat late to the game. Already, several apps like Byte, Dubsmash, and Triller are trying to win over TikTok users with similar products. And one of Instagram’s biggest rivals, Snapchat, is also reportedly testing TikTok-style design for exploring content.
