After being successfully tested in the United States for almost 5 months, Facebook Reels have just been extended to smartphones for the vast majority of users. The new video format from the American giant, which competes with platforms such as TikTok and Youtube, is now available in more than 150 countries (including The US) on iOS and Android. But this novelty feature is above all part of the platform’s long-term strategy. Facebook is indeed trying to keep its users who seem to have lost interest in the platform over the past few years.
For the past few years, the Meta group, with its flagship social networks Facebook and Instagram, has been losing ground to new platforms like TikTok, which sees its popularity ratings explode on a daily basis. In other words, the Chinese social network is experiencing such a level of growth that its number of users doubled between 2019 and 2021. They then exceeded the 750 million monthly user mark in 2022.
The dazzling success of TikTok can partly be explained by the format and type of content the platform offers. The social network favors short, funny and original videos in a vertical format (9:16) that resonate with its users. To counter this phenomenon and attract more users, some platforms have decided to integrate a format similar to the now famous TikToks. Thus, in 2020, YouTube launched YouTube Shorts, and Instagram created Reels. These are two features that have paid off, since they remain one of the most promoted formats on each of the respective platforms.
At the same time, the social network Facebook is still losing momentum. So much so that in the last quarter of 2021, the American giant recorded a record loss of over 500,000 users per day. So, in order to relaunch its flagship network, Meta has introduced a new feature: Facebook Reels. Initially only tested in a handful of countries, this form of media enjoyed an instant success that made it the fastest growing platform of the group, overtaking Facebook and Instagram.
With such a successful test phase, on February 22, 2022 Facebook launched its new media in more than 150 countries simultaneously. And to ensure that the Reels are able to compete with TikTok videos and YouTube Shorts, Meta decided to inject a $1 billion contribution over the year 2022 to attract creators from other platforms to join the group’s latest project. This was a similar tactic that streaming platforms Mixer and Facebook Live used to take market shares from Twitch. Meta is promising lucrative contracts (up to $35,000 a month) to established creators who decide to join Facebook Reels.
In order to showcase its new media, Facebook has pushed Reels onto different places on the platform. They are now visible:
In addition to its new placements, Facebook offers exclusive features to the creators of Reels to incentivize them:
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Along with the launch of Reels, Facebook has expanded its monetization system to encourage creators to focus their efforts on the platform. From now on, it is possible for creators, agencies, media and content producers to get paid depending on the size of their audience and number of views. So, Facebook has now made it possible to monetize a whole host of videos:
In addition to these measures, Facebook has decided to expand access to monetization. In an effort to help creators, the eligibility criteria have been relaxed. To join Facebook’s ad partner program, one must now simply:
Considering how recently Facebook Reels were launched, we don’t have enough data to share tips about how to optimize this feature. However, it is likely that Facebook Reels share many similarities with Instagram Reels. We can therefore assume that the platform will strongly promote this feature in the coming months.
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