Looks like Instagram’s copycat strategy isn’t going as well as they hoped.
According to the Wall Street Journal’s report on Meta’s internal research document, Reels’ engagement has fallen for four weeks straight.
It gets worse: Overall engagement is down 13.6%, with “most users having no engagement whatsoever.”
In fact, only about 20% of creators on the platform are making content.
By the views: Instagram users are spending 17.6M hours a day watching Reels.
For comparison, TikTok users spend 197.8M hours daily… a staggering ten times higher than Instagram users.
To add insult to injury, a third of Reels content is made on other platforms—usually TikTok. Ouch.
Why we care: TikTok is larger and more engaging than Reels, which probably makes it a safer bet when it comes to performance.
Something to think about if you’re producing short form video content and ads.