If Instagram was able to copy Snapchat and have immense success thanks to Stories a few years ago, its new attempt seems much less successful. According to internal company documents (a subsidiary of the Meta group, such as Facebook) consulted by the Wall Street Journal, the popularity of Reels, a video format copied from TikTok and based essentially on the editing of rhythmic sequences on a musical background, is far from the company’s expectations. The reels have been released in recent months all over the world.
According to these data, the Reels accumulate 17.6 million hours of viewing per day worldwide among the approximately two billion Instagram users. A figure that may seem impressive, but that represents less than a tenth of that of TikTok, its Chinese rival, whose content is around 200 million hours a day (197.8 million). These revelations were accompanied by a drop in Meta’s share price of around 8%, recalls CNBC.
A third of Reels are TikTok videos
Also according to these internal documents, the commitment around the Reels is falling. Despite the popularity of the platform, only 2.3 million American “creators” publish Reels each month. And for good reason: most content creators of this type prefer to turn to TikTok, where the success of their posts is much more important. So much so that a third of the Reels are nothing more than simple video captures of videos posted on TikTok, reports the financial daily.
With the Wall Street Journal, Meta ensures that it configures its algorithm to limit the reach of these “imported” videos from TikTok. The company also assures that the figures published by the American media do not reflect reality, without accepting, however, to disclose others.
While Facebook and Instagram revenues remain among the largest in the online advertising industry ($29 billion), they saw their first drop this summer. A major problem, while the image of the company, which also relies on virtual reality to develop, sees its image largely tarnished, especially after the revelations of the whistleblower Frances Haugen at the end of 2021 after another study intern mentioned by the Wall Street Journal20% of Instagram users believe that the company cares about them. They were 70% to think like this in 2019.
Source: BFM TV
