Meta announced the addition of support for longer Facebook Reels of up to 90 seconds, as well as some new creative tools. Facebook Reels were previously limited to 60 seconds. The updates come several months after Meta enabled longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds. TikTok expanded after entering YouTube’s territory with videos that can be up to 10 minutes long instead of just three.
The company is also releasing new creative tools, such as a new templates feature that allows users to create Reels using trending templates. The new feature, which was added to Instagram Reels last year, allows users to create new Reels with the same structure as the one they were watching. Templates are similar to TikTok’s own templating feature.
Furthermore, Facebook Reels is getting a new “Grooves” feature that uses visual beat technology to automatically align and sync the motion in your video to the beat of your favourite song. Syncing video to sounds has long been a feature of TikTok, so it’s no surprise that Meta is bringing it to Facebook Reels after first introducing it to Instagram Reels last year.
It’s worth noting that all of these new Reels features first appeared on Instagram over seven months ago and are now available on Facebook. Meta may have wanted to see how they worked on Instagram Reels before bringing them over to Facebook Reels.
Last year, Facebook launched Reels, which was seen as an important part of Meta’s response to the TikTok threat. Although Meta initially saw Reels as a way to directly compete with TikTok through an Instagram app feature, the company quickly realised it could mount a more powerful counteroffensive if it also included Facebook in the mix and allowed for cross-posting between the two social networks.
Reels is Meta’s fastest growing format, and it’s only getting started. According to an email from the company, reel plays on Facebook and Instagram have more than doubled in the last year. It also stated that Reels’ reshares on Facebook and Instagram have more than doubled in the last six months. Meta intends to continue adding new features to Reels in order to make it easier for creators to be discovered.
