A few days ago Meta announced a plethora of updates and new features which they are going to target towards Reels on both Instagram and Facebook. Meta aims to help creators engage more with their audiences, for which they realized they will need to give the users more creative control. Reels have been the talk of the town nowadays and there is no doubt that it is Meta’s fastest-growing content format. As Meta tries their best to give Tik-Tok a run for their money, they have come up with a bunch of reel updates, new stickers, audio tools, templates, and more.
Instagram story features such as Poll, Emoji slider stickers, and Quiz, which are already pretty popular with the users are now being brought to Reels as well. This is a good approach by Meta to leverage their tried and tested features and use them to enhance reels more. Instagram reels have also been extended to 90 seconds now so that users can use that time to create more or express more. Instagram talked about this in a blog post stating, “You will have more time to share more about yourself, film extra behind-the-scenes clips, dig deeper into the nuances of your content, or whatever else you want to do with that extra time,”
Instagram reels have also got the ability now to import audio. This feature will allow the users to insert any voice recording or commentary of their own into any video that is more than 5 seconds long and is saved in their camera roll. Additionally, they are also coming up with Reel Templates that will help you to recreate the exact structure of a reel you just watched. With the help of templates, Users will be able to use both the audio and video parts of other videos, they can even choose to create more complex formats by adding or trimming their clips.
Simultaneously, Meta’s Facebook Reels too have gotten a lot of upgrades and have become more convenient and user-friendly than ever. Creators on the platform will now have the ability to create, schedule, and edit their Facebook Reels from their desktops. This can be done through the Creator Studio, where users can keep their reels scheduled as well. The company has also come up with a lot of editing tools that make life easier for users who post long, recorded, or live videos to test different formats like Reels. These trimming tools will help the creators in making clips from long-form videos, editing them, and seamlessly turning them into Facebook Reels.
They are also bringing something for the gaming video creators as these creators will now be able to churn out content for vertical reels of sixty seconds from their live streaming videos and game clips. This with a dual cam view of both the creator and the gameplay. Another key addition to this rich user experience will also be the launch of Sound Sync, a tool that automatically syncs users’ video clips to the beat of their favorite track. Reel users will also be able to add voiceovers to their videos.
Facebook will be pushing suggested reels in its feed globally, as well as on Watch and Groups. The company says that this will help the creators to have a broader reach and help them amass an audience from all across the world. They also want the reel creators to know that they are prioritized and ranked based on whether their content is original or not. With so many changes made to enrich the user and creator experience, Meta continues to be at loggerheads with a giant company like Tik-Tok.
