That finding reflects a broader weakness of some Reels videos: They aren’t unique. Still, there’s a caveat: A majority of most-viewed Reels were shared by accounts that are anonymous or primarily aggregate and repost other creators’ content, like TikTok videos. Last quarter was the first that Reels have been on Facebook, so it makes sense that Reels are appearing for the first time on these charts, but it’s a big deal that they’re taking up this many of the highest-ranked posts. So far, Meta’s push for Reels seems to be working, at least in terms of grabbing Facebook users’ attention: According to an exclusive analysis provided to Recode by the social internet think tank the Integrity Institute, Reels has become so popular that more than half of the top 20 most-viewed posts across Facebook (the report does not include Instagram views) in the US last quarter were Reels that were originally posted to Instagram. On a recent earnings call, Zuckerberg mentioned Reels at least 20 times and listed it as his top key investment area for 2022, saying, “It’s definitely the right thing to lean into this and to push hard to grow Reels as quickly as possible and not hold on the brakes at all.” That doesn’t mean Reels should be overlooked.
(To put that in context, Meta was founded only 18 years ago.) In the meantime, Meta is putting its full force behind Reels, a short-form video product that looks a lot like TikTok and has gotten a lot less buzz than its big metaverse bet. But the metaverse for now is mostly a concept and will take five to 10 years to build. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has made the company’s long-term plan clear: It’s all-in on the metaverse, a virtual world where people can use augmented and virtual reality tech to interact with each other. What it focuses on next will determine its future and have an impact on the many people who rely on its products.
While it boasts over 3.5 billion users a month across its Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp platforms, its user base is aging, it’s facing fierce competition from the short-form video platform TikTok, and its ad-targeting business model is confronting a painful disruption. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, needs to stay relevant.
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