Instagram (and just about every social media and video sharing platform) is in a heated battle against TikTok. The short-form video-sharing platform exploded over the past couple of years. Unfortunately, platforms like Instagram, YouTube, and Snapchat were in the blast zone. To combat this, those companies made their own takes on the TikTok style and introduced Reels, Short, and Spotlight. These were their attempts to capture some of the market stolen from them. However, it seems that TikTok is still reigning supreme.
Instagram engagement dropped significantly, and Reels might be to blame
While making the pivot to TikTok clone seemed like a good idea, it might have hurt the company more than it helped. According to Later Blog, engagement has dropped across the board for Instagram posts since 2020. If you’re wondering what causes this, well, what happened in 2020 (besides that virus and all)? This is when Instagram made the switch to Reels. Since the introduction of Instagram Reels, the company saw a 44% drop in engagement. This included engagement for feed videos (not reels), carousel posts, and pictures. Since the company pivoted toward Reels, each of those posts saw a consistent decline. This was obtained through a study of 81 million posts.
As you can see in the graph above, videos, carousel posts, and images all saw a decline in engagement. What’s shocking is that they all declined at about the same rate. This could point to either people preferring to watch Reels or Instagram heavily deprioritizing the other types of posts. We know that Meta has been focusing more on pushing Reels to more people. It’s a bit sad that other forms of media have to suffer because of the competition with TikTok. These companies are neglecting longer forms of media. Several creators dread the fact that they need to create shorter versions of their videos just to keep from losing engagement. Let’s just hope that this is a phase.
