For a while now, Instagram spoke about how keen it was on competing with its fellow archrival TikTok. And they planned on doing just that through the introduction of short video content such as Reels.
But a new internal report that has been critiqued by WSJ says Reels isn't standing where the tech giant had envisioned it to be. To put it simply, it’s just lagging far behind all forms of competition.
The document went on to detail how most Reels' users on the app are failing to get any engagement. Seeing the news of the platform falling flat on the ground is generally concerning for Meta and the experts feel it’s got a long way to go if it plans on affecting TikTok’s share of the competitive market.
On average, the document went on to prove how out of 11 million content creators that use the app, only 21% are involved in putting up Reels on a monthly basis. And out of those, there has been zero to no engagement at all.
The report that is titled Creators x Reels State of the Union, also proved how TikTok users as a whole tend to spend 197.8 million hours witnessing content on the app daily. On the other hand, users on Instagram are spending nearly one-tenth of that amount, which is about 17 million hours daily.
But seeing this report published really had Meta in a bad mood. The company’s spokesperson was quick to call the report an outdated feature that not only featured incorrect information but also was designed to paint a fake narrative of what the progress for Reels has turned out to be.
Although Meta did admit that it’s got plenty of work to do still on its Reels, it was happy with the progress so far. They also elaborated how promising results are up for grabs while monetization across the platform is also seeing new growth at a faster pace.
Meta concluded by highlighting how more and more people are connecting, watching, and engaging with Reels than what the firm saw previously.
But the reports say otherwise. It claims that the biggest reason why the Reel content is failing on the platform has to do with how there is so much non-original content. Moreover, stats proved how most videos seen have been posted on other apps and then shared on Instagram too. And that causes a general loss of interest from the users’ point of view. After all, who wants to see repetitive content?
One way that the report says you can find recycled videos is by searching for a watermark that can be spotted immediately. And while the firm does try its best to downrank such repetitive content on the app, they do somehow pass the barriers and make its way forward.
The Meta spokesperson says that recycled videos are also not recommended on the app because so many viewers have told them that they’re not a fan of seeing old Reels. Instead, they would much rather prefer to see new and unique content that’s solely designed for the platform. And it makes sense because it’s just so much more inspiring and even entertaining.
The timing of this report is rather unique. It arises shortly after one of the app’s attempts to display more video content on the platform failed miserably.
A lot of celebs and the majority of users on the app protested against the idea of testing full-screen displays of Instagram. Similarly, they weren’t in favor of Facebook’s algorithm being like TikTok’s.
So as you can see, Instagram has been through a lot in recent times and this report isn’t comforting either.
