If you can't beat your enemy, join them. Or at least copy them. That's been the dominant strategy in social media since its very inception. Social networks have been copying their emerging competitors, positioning themselves with very similar features, or outright buying those that were beginning to hurt them for millions of dollars. Facebook bought Instagram when the social network began to become too emerging, and Instagram incorporated the features that made others popular (Stories were simply a copy of what made Snap so attractive).
Now that TikTok continues to grow, Instagram must find a way to curb its emergence if it doesn't want to become completely outdated and force Meta/Facebook to lose its most important asset in remaining relevant. To this end, Instagram has been refocusing on Reels for some time now, promoting that content and trying to captivate those audiences who are flocking to TikTok to see exactly the same thing (albeit in its original space). The big question is whether Instagram is coming to this too late and also whether its original users will be willing to accept the change.
In the summer, the social network already experienced a moment of crisis, when its own influencers began to criticize Instagram's recent changes. At the end of July, the company itself advertisement that it was reversing its last update, that it had increased recommended content, and that it had further TikTokized Instagram, sparking criticism from influential users like Kim Kardashian and Kylie Jenner. One of the Kardashian sisters even published a post asking for "Instagram to be Instagram."
“We recognize that changes to the app may be an adjustment, and while we believe Instagram needs to evolve as the world changes, we want to take the time to make sure we get this right,” Instagram said at the time.
Weeks later, Meta still believes that Reels are the key to survival. According to points out The Wall Street Journal, Mark Zuckerberg continues to rely on these videos to secure Instagram's immediate future, as evidenced by an internal document obtained by the financial daily.
However, for now it's not working as well as it would probably like. The 17.6 million hours that Instagram users spend watching Reels each day pale in comparison to TikTok's 197.8 million. As the Journal It's only a tenth of that. Add to that the fact that Reels engagement is falling (13.6% compared to four weeks ago) and that, according to Instagram's own data, "the majority of Reels users aren't engaged at all."
The company has pointed out that these are not global data, but they have not entered into an assessment of anything more than what the Journal puts on the table.
Why aren't Reels taking off? The key lies in the fact that right now Instagram isn't getting people to upload content in that format. Only 20.71% of those who actively publish content on Instagram in the US each month publish Reels, for example.
A third of the Reels circulating on the social network are content created for another platform (TikTok, most commonly) and include its watermark. "No one is going to create original content for Instagram," one creator admits to the financial daily. "It doesn't make sense," he adds. It's not working for them.
That's right, and according to data provided by Instagram to the newspaper, half of what is shared through private messages are Reels.
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