As part of Meta’s strategy to better compete with TikTok, new tools were introduced that make Reels even more useful. First of all, you can now remix not only videos but also photos from Instagram. The company has added more remix layouts with green screen, split screen, or picture-in-picture view to make it easier to add your own commentary or use an existing Reels. You can also choose to add your remix to the end of the original Reel instead of playing it side-by-side. In this way, if you have a criticism or a rebuttal you want to publish, it is possible to better show what you are responding to.
Also, Meta offers new templates to make it easy to create Reels with pre-loaded audio and video effects, and simply add your photo or video to one of them. You can view the company’s collection of templates by tapping the camera icon in the Reels tab. Another new feature that makes the feature a more real competitor to TikTok is the ability to record simultaneously with the phone’s front and rear cameras using the Instagram camera.
Finally, Meta also confirmed an earlier leak stating that it will translate all videos posted on Instagram as Reels as long as they are shorter than 15 minutes. Since videos of less than 90 seconds can be recommended in the app, they will have a wider reach. But if you’re not interested in being famous, you don’t have to worry because if your profile is set to private, Instagram will not use Reels as suggestions and will not retroactively convert old uploads. This feature will be rolling out in the coming weeks and will combine all your videos and reels into one tab in the app.
Just a few days ago, Instagram also introduced a feature that will allow influencers to earn income from Reels. Content creators will now be able to share their subscriber-only posts, hiding their content behind a payment requirement.
Meta has promised developers it won’t take a cut from their revenue until 2024, but putting Reels behind a payment requirement will be a way to monetize those videos in the second half of 2022.
Since we can say that the direction the Meta is heading is now obvious, it seems likely that we will see more features aimed at monetizing short videos in the near future.
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