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Facebook Brings Reels to its Main App as it Seeks to Capitalize on the Short-Form Video Trend

Published

2 years ago

August 19, 2021

facebook brings reels to its main app as it seeks to capitalize on the short form video trend

As TikTok continues to gain momentum, Facebook continues to seek new ways to quell that growth, with its latest attempted pushback coming via Facebook Reels, which will enable users to create and share Instagram Reels within the main Facebook app.

As you can see here, Facebook is now testing a new Reels display unit within user feeds in US, which will help to link more users into its short-video offering.

As reported by TechCrunch:

“Facebook Reels will give Facebook users the ability to create and share short-form video content directly within the News Feed or within Facebook Groups. Initially, you’ll be able to tap a “Create” button from the Reels section that appears as you scroll the News Feed, while you’re watching Reels or by tapping on “Reels” at the top of your News Feed. From here, users will gain access to a standard set of creation tools, including those for video capture, music selection, camera roll import, timed text and more.”

In addition, Facebook’s also expanding its option for Instagram Reels creators to share their Reels to Facebook, which will see those Reels displayed with the users’ Instagram profile name.

The expansion is no major surprise. Desperate to halt TikTok’s momentum, Facebook has been testing Reels creation and sharing within Facebook over the past few months, which has also included an experiment with a new Stories/Reels/Rooms feed at the top of user feeds.

Facebook hasn’t taken the leap with that format just yet, but this new test is an expansion of experiments it’s been running since March with Reels content displayed on Facebook, with the next element being Reels creation within the Facebook app itself.

Which could be a significant leap. The benefit, in this respect, is that it will expose many users who don’t use TikTok to the short-form video process, which has proven to be increasingly engaging to many younger audiences, specifically. Maybe, with Reels on Facebook, large sections of older audience groups will also be enticed to join in, and that could give Reels usage a boost, while the addition of the format within specific groups could also help to maximize engagement, and keep users posting their clips to Facebook and IG, instead of migrating to TikTok for the same experience.

It could also enable Facebook to use its reach into developing markets to beat TikTok to the punch. If people can already interact via short-form video with their established networks on Facebook, that could lessen the desire for them to download a new app and build new connections.

It seems unlikely that it will significantly slow TikTok’s growth, which is still leading the download charts, but maybe, it could hasten it just a little, while building Facebook’s own video engagement.

And Reels has seen solid engagement growth, despite being a direct TikTok clone. In the company’s most recent earnings call, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Reels had been the largest contributor to engagement growth on Instagram in the quarter. Which could alternatively suggest that Instagram growth is slowing in other areas, but either way, Reels has become a solid contributor, and is part of Instagram’s recent announcement that it’s ‘no longer a photo sharing app‘.

Short-form video engagement has become an increasingly habitual trend, and by exposing more people to Reels, Facebook will better align with that shift, which could drive engagement growth, and present new opportunities.

That could also make it a bigger consideration for brands, depending on take-up. It could, of course, go the way for Facebook Stories, and largely fizzle out. But it might also end up being a strong driver, and it’ll be worth taking note of those view counts and engagement stats.

Facebook says that the new Facebook Reels display will be made available to a small percentage of users in the US, starting today, while it’s already available to some users in India, Mexico and Canada.

Socialmediatoday.com

SOCIAL

Musk regrets controversial post but won’t bow to advertiser ‘blackmail’

Published

5 hours ago

November 30, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

Elon Musk’s comments at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence – Copyright GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP Slaven Vlasic

Elon Musk apologized Wednesday for endorsing a social media post widely seen as anti-Semitic, but accused advertisers who are turning away from his social media platform X of “blackmail” and said anyone who does so can “go fuck yourself.”

The remark before corporate executives at the New York Times’ Dealbook conference drew a shocked silence.

Earlier, Musk had apologized for what he called “literally the worst and dumbest post that I’ve ever done.”

In a comment on X, formerly Twitter, Musk on November 15 called a post “the actual truth” that said Jewish communities advocated a “dialectical hatred against whites,” which was criticized as echoing longtime conspiracy theory among White supremacists.

The statement prompted a flood of departures from X of major advertisers, including Apple, Disney, Comcast and IBM who criticized Musk for anti-semitism.

“I’m sorry for that tweet or post,” Musk said Wednesday. “It was foolish of me.”

He told interviewer Andrew Ross Sorkin that his post had been misinterpreted and that he had sought to clarify the remark in subsequent posts to the thread.

But Musk also said he wouldn’t be beholden to pressure from advertisers.

“If somebody’s gonna try to blackmail me with advertising, blackmail me with money?” Musk said. “Go fuck yourself.”

But the billionaire acknowledged that there were business implications to the advertiser actions.

“If the company fails… it will fail because of an advertiser boycott” Musk said. “And that will be what will bankrupt the company.”

Musk, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu during a visit to Israel earlier this week, insisted in the interview that he holds no discrimination against Jews, calling himself “philo-Semitic,” or an admirer of Judaism.

During the interview, Musk wore a necklace given to him by a parent of an Israeli hostage taken in the Hamas attack on October 7. The necklace reads, “Bring Them Home.”

Musk told Sorkin that the Israel trip had been planned earlier and was not an “apology tour” related to the controversial tweet.

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SOCIAL

TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

Published

12 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

TikTok Encourages Creators To Make Longer Videos, With Focus On Ad Revenue 11/30/2023

With a need to expand its advertising business, TikTok is now fully focused on the output of long-form videos.

A new report by The Information shows the company’s recent efforts to convince
creators to put out longer videos in order to provide more room for ad placements.

According to the …

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SOCIAL

X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

Published

19 hours ago

November 29, 2023

Entireweb News Bot

X Adds Option To Embed Videos in Isolation From Posts

Next time you go to embed an X post, you may notice a new step:

Now, X will enable you to choose whether you want to embed the video element in isolation, or the whole post, as normal.

And if you do choose to embed just the video (or GIF), it’ll look like this:

Which could be a helpful way to present X-originated video on third-party websites, and add context to, say, your blog post, without the clutter of the full X framing.

But it could also reduce brand exposure for X, which is likely why Twitter didn’t enable this before, though it did once provide an “embedded video widget” which essentially served the same purpose.

Twitter gradually seemed to phase that out as the platform evolved, and there’s no specific reason that I can find as to why it removed it as an option. But either way, now, it’s back, so you have more options for using X-originated content, and putting more focus on video elements specifically.

Though I don’t know why they didn’t also take the opportunity to remove the ‘Tweet’ reference. Since the re-brand to X, the platform seems to have gone to little effort to weed out all the tweet and bird terminology, but then again, with 80% fewer staff, that’s probably understandable as well.

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