Instagram’s attempt on its version of the Reels to emulate the most popular TikTok format it is costing the platform millions of dollars. In addition to countless updates to the application and even protests from some of the most relevant social personalities.
Instagram had to back down with the most controversial measures of its “tiktokization”
Such was the case of Kilye Jenner and Kim Kardashian who protested when Instagram announced that all their videos would be converted to Reels format, threatening to leave the platform, although finally the social network reformulated its proposal.
Now it has been known, thanks to the leak of an internal Meta document (company to which Instagram belongs, along with Facebook, WhatsApp and Oculus), that the parent company itself is aware of having failed with his Reels.
Thus, compared to the almost 198 million hours that users spend each day on TikTok, Instagram users barely spend 17 million hours a day watching the Reels of this platform. The documentation that accompanies the Meta report and that was distributed last August indicates that the audience capture by the Reels had fallen almost 14% during the previous month and that the majority of users had not managed to stabilize as their regular audience.
One of the most important problems in this regard for Instagram would be the lack of originality of the content, given that a third of the videos published under this format come from other platforms, sometimes including their watermark, which prompts the audience to search for the original channel from which said video comes. Which becomes inconvenient when the origin is the quintessential rival, TikTok.
To combat this situation, Instagram penalizes content of this type by minimizing its visibility. In addition, Meta has established a fund of 1,000 million dollars to promote the content for which its creators obtain monetization as long as they are exclusive to Instagram and Facebook. An initiative that has so far distributed 120 million dollars among content creators on Instagram.
