Instagram attacks TikTok with new reels feature
Facebook/Instagram is clearly dominating the social media world as long as social media itself evolved from boards and newsgroups back in the days. A long time they set the standards for new features. Currently they are testing their new Reel feature with some users. After instagram being victorious over SnapChat by successfully coping its story feature, they now took on the next fight on TikTok with their video timeline. Will instagram win another time and really deep dive into the short-video market? In the evolution of social media from text-only to a large variety of text+image combinations the video-only feature is the next logical step in a world that gets faster and faster.
Due to a very prominent placement the new reels feature is placed in the most important spot for most users. They placed the new feature where the user was used to tap for searching or exploring in the lower left next to the home icon.
On the reels page you have an endless timeline of short videos. The user is animated to consume more content where the focus of interaction due comments is massively lowered. While the story feature, which Instagram adapted from SnapChat, was at first completely focussed on private authentic videos the new Reels video already contains a huge amount of influential marketing and product placement. Time will tell if Instagram can move their audience to the new feature idea while not overdoing it with branding/advertising.
The new Reels view itself reminds a lot of the for you page we already know from TikTok. This shows how serious Facebook takes the new competition — even sacrificing their own main feature: the explore page.
It will be interesting to see if Facebook can make the switch from an image platform towards a fast consuming video content platform.
