Amidst this grave pandemic and after being hit by the hazardous Chinese virus, the whole world has crashed rock bottom. It has been an emotional roller coaster ride for people, but the highest peak was when they were furious. The whole world is angry due to the precautious isolation they were compelled into. They tried to rebuke in every way and one of the recent ones was banning Chinese apps, which included the incredibly famous entertainment app, TikTok. TikTok is a video-sharing social network service and was one of the most used apps before getting banned. People from all around the world were using it to get famous and for a lot of customers it was a source of income too. Hence its erasure did lead to a loss for a lot of people who were solely dependent on this app.
However, this section of welfare was taken care by an Instagram feature called Reels which offers the exact services of TikTok. It is supposedly the rival of TikTok and till now the responses have matched this statement too. Last year Facebook’ Instagram started experimented its Reel feature in Brazil, where it was called Cenas. In India it was launched on the 11th of July 2020 and India is the fourth country to use it. Before the ban, TikTok’ largest market outside China was India, hence it would not have been introduced in India that fast if TikTok was not banned. This product was created by the VP of product, Facebook, Vishal Shah and he expressed his thought process by saying, “this product comes from the realisation that 45 per cent of videos on Instagram are 15 seconds or less, we also realised that stories are not the only place where they wanted to share these videos as they wanted them to stick on for longer and be distributed beyond their followers.”
Currently Instagram’ Reels is in an experimental stage which is good for the company as it gives them time to experiment and develop better, but at the same time dicey for the users as it leaves them perplexed if they should invest the time and energy or not, but they would give it a thought as they can still make some money out of it. Since it has a similar interface as TikTok the ex TikTok users can swiftly make this shift, one can gain followers easily, as it’s an integrated Instagram feature people would not have to advertise their content somewhere else, therefore audience targeting becomes easier. Reel users will have the benefit to share videos based on their friends or followers list through Instagram’s direct messages to keep it more private. They will also have the option to make it public by sharing it on a public feed through a new Top Reels section of Explore. Users can add special effects such as animations, stickers, background music, audio snippets, and more to their short videos. They can also add timed captions and ghost overlay for effects. Users can alternatively borrow the audio from anyone else’s video to create a video of their own.
Now if we talk about the real world businesses, Reel stands equally beneficial let us see how: more businesses and consumers are joining daily as there has been an virtual shift and digital marketing is at its peak too, demographics is important and understanding it through this platform is simple too. There great sense of awareness among people due to the virtual dependency. Finding producers and customers is an easy task now, marketing and advertising have also become quick and uncomplicated. Many brands already consider Instagram to be one of the multichannel digital marketing strategies, and an option like Instagram Reels could create even more opportunities for brands to reach younger audiences and create unique branding and sponsorship opportunities. Digital marketers should continue to follow the growth of Instagram Reels around the world.
After digging deeper, it was seen that Reels can be particularly useful in the business of real estate where it can add features like dynamism, personalization, and visibility for the customers. Using this feature can help hike their publications as showing of houses and apartments through short videos will make the whole process less monotonous and conventional.
Yet, Reels is not all satisfactory as many users have described it to be “buried” inside Instagram which means that it is not easy to spot the feature in the application. Although the company has made several UI changes it has only made it a slightly easier to discover Reels via the Explore Tab, but it is still difficult to figure how one can be created. Users are now getting confused as to which format to pick to make a video as apart from Reels, four other video services exist in Instagram itself, that are normal video on story, normal video on feed, live video and IGTV. What Reel lacks is TikTok's powerful content creation tools and the simple idea of creating and consuming short videos in a loop. It is predicted that Instagram is about to get louder unless Reels decides to become a standalone app soon. Well replacing TikTok could be an uphill, as many users described its deletion as the end of an era, but not an impossible task. Reel has started wining hearts and its widespread launch happens to match this perfect virtual standstill as people are trying new things every day.
Today a huge chunk of generation has devoted their precious time in content creation and becoming influencers and at this stage introducing features like Reel or other homegrown apps is a boon. Its effortless accessibility also results people from all generation and fields to give it a try. Many well-known influencers have said that this keeps them driven as each time they discover something unique about themselves and increases their constant urge to connect with people. A crucial factor pointed out from the constant users is the psychological aspect, where it is said that being part of a social network has boosted their confidence there by adding to the wellness of their mental health which also is one of the major problems faced by the world today. Therefore, Reel is just another platform contributing to this factor.
It was always noticed that there are audience who very openly criticized TikTok, its content and the influencers. Now if we see this is an extremely sensitive and debatable topic but at the end of the day everyone deserves to have an opinion unless converted into a hate speech. However, this biased opinion has been dragged to Reel too and it is not exactly ideal to broadcast such thoughts as the products is still at its infancy. Let us take a look at Instagram’s past, when Instagram had included the story feature in 2016 it was instantly appreciated and today, over five hundred million users use stories daily. Now if Instagram Reels rolls out in a similar manner, we can without a doubt say it has a bright future ahead. Content creation is a big market therefore it is going to be easier for homegrown apps to swell in today’ world. As the competition is still low on Reels, now is a good chance for new or intermediate businesses and influencers to jump in.
Social network has brought many things on your fingertips, from being an entrepreneur to being an influencer. This new world does things rapidly by surfing on the web and in such times these fifteen seconds of joy is promising to astound the world with more and updated features along with expanding its benefits in various fields. Reel is Instagram’ solid answer to TikTok and very soon TikTok may have a replacement in the near virtual future.
amazing read, very informative