Meta is launching its TikTok-clone, Reels, on Facebook globally. The company today announced that the short-video sharing feature will be available in the Facebook app on Android and iOS in 150 countries across the globe. The feature arrived on Instagram back in 2020.
“Reels is already our fastest growing content format by far, and today we’re making it available to everyone on Facebook globally,” Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a post on Facebook.
In addition to making Reels available globally, Meta also announced new editing tools for Reels creators on Facebook. The list includes features like remix, drafts and video clipping. As Facebook explains, Remix will let users create their own reel alongside an existing, publicly-shared reel on Facebook. Drafts functionality, on the other hand, enables users to save a reel as a draft. The third option called video clipping will give more video editing tools to record and share long-form videos. Apart from this, Facebook is bringing the ability to record reels that are up to 60-seconds long to its platform.
Additionally, Facebook is also pushing Reels in every corner of its platform. The company said that now Reels will be available in Stories, Watch, and NewsFeed that was recently rechristened Feed. The company also said that in select countries, it will start suggesting reel in users’ Feed from people that they already follow.
More monetisation tools
Lastly, Meta also announced monetisation features for Facebook Reels creators. The company said that it is expanding its Reels Pay Bonus program, as a part of which it pays up to $35,000 (Rs approximately) to the qualifying reels to more countries. It is also expanding tests of Facebook Reels Overlay Ads to all creators in the US, Canada, Mexico and more countries in the companies. Initially, this program will include banner ads that will appear as a semi-transparent overlay at the bottom of a Facebook Reel, and sticker ads, which is a static image ad that can be placed by a creator anywhere within their reel. Lastly, the company will also begin testing Stars on Facebook Reels in the coming weeks in order to viewers buy and send Stars while watching reels to support creators.
But why this sudden change?
Facebook (now Meta) has long betted on videos as the next big format of content consumption. The company has been pushing videos on both Instagram and on Facebook for a long time. But lately, it is facing stiff competition from TikTok, something that Zuckerberg acknowledged in the company’s quarterly earnings calls recently. “TikTok is so big as a competitor already and also continues to grow at quite a faster rate off of a very large base…Even though we’re compounding extremely quickly, that’s — we also have a competitor that is compounding at a pretty quick rate, too,” he had said during the earnings calls.
In addition to that, Facebook has also seen a decrease in the number of daily active users – first time since launch. Amid these circumstances, Facebook’s big push for reels can be seen as a way for the company to lure users back to its platform and maintain its relevance among the youth that prefer snappy platforms such as TikTok and Snapchat.
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