Well, well, well – Welcome to the “Reels” family, Facebook! We’ve already seen Instagram reels become a close competitor for the popular short-form video platform, TikTok – but Facebook has decided to join the game just days after TikTok shared that it had reached a billion active users.
With a 250 Million+ US audience, Facebook is excited to bring the new feature to its platform, after testing it in India where TikTok is banned. Similar to Instagram Reels, Facebook explains:
“Reels on Facebook can consist of music, audio, effects and more. You can find them in News Feed or in Groups, and when viewing a reel on Facebook, you can easily follow the creator directly from the video, like and comment on it, or share it with friends.”
The unique element of the Facebook roll-out is the ‘share to groups’ feature. In addition to sharing your video content to your newsfeed, users will also have the option to add their reel creations to groups that they are a member of.
Considering groups is a widely used feature, with a reported 1.8 Billion users every month interacting in groups, Facebook’s decision to introduce the share of reels is wise to increase engagement on their platform.
TikTok & Instagram’s advantage on Facebook has been that anyone could see your content, creating the potential to go viral. To compete, Facebook is looking to promote the creation of content on their platform through a new bonus program:
“As part of our commitment to invest over $1 billion in creators through 2022, we’re also offering a new bonus program to help creators earn money when people view their reels. The ‘Reels Play’ bonus pays eligible creators based on the performance of their reels, and will be available on both Facebook and Instagram. After seeing creators embrace the Instagram Reels Summer bonus, we hope this new bonus will allow more creators to make money from their content.”
Snapchat had a similar program called the “Spotlight creator fund”, which caused a riff amongst creators once funding dried up. This presents a similar challenge to the new Facebook program, and creators are weary of participation. Regardless, Facebook is optimistic that the new features, in combination with the bonus program will ignite excitement amongst creators and encourage users to spend more time on their platform.
Is that likely though? TikTok thrives from a younger audience. One who is quicker to adapt to trending videos, has more free time to spend on the platform, and to be frank – is more technology savvy. While Facebook has maintained an older audience, of which many miss the marks of what it takes to go viral on a short-form content platform.
This doesn’t mean that Facebook is fading out though! The platform still has 2.9 billion active users and seems to expand every day. With the ability to support business through paid mediums and their plans to innovate through the future, the platform is still a top contender in the social media realm.
What does this mean for your business?
Keep creating content! The trend of video content being the most engaging form of content will not disappear anytime soon. Consumers feed their time with short-form videos that pump knowledge and entertainment to them quickly.
There are many ways to create content at a mass scale for a variety of platforms. The key is to work smarter, not harder when creating omni-channel content!
But, for the business owners that are just too busy, or not interested in using their brain power to strategically create content… Hi, we’re Adapting Social, your design and marketing experts ready to scale your business, revenue and following! Give us a call (732-383-7439) or slide into our DM’s. We can’t wait to collaborate with you!
