Facebook, Instagram Reels Losing Engagement War to TikTok

Credit: juneaye

Instagram has been hot on the heels of TikTok ever since it started gaining huge global traction. The Meta-owned app introduced Reels to replicate TikTok’s core features and skewed its algorithm to favor the short-form video format instead of photos. Facebook followed suit soon after with its own version of Reels. So, how are the two Meta properties faring against today’s most popular social network?

According to an internal document titled “Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022” published in August, out of 11 million US Instagram creators, only 20.7% (or 2.3 million) use Reels. As it turns out, the platform is having trouble getting people to use the feature and churn out original content. After all, Instagram was initially designed as an app that showcases photos, and its influencers had already found a home in this before the platform forced Reels upon its user base.

Perhaps the most startling revelation in the said document centers on engagement and media consumption. Despite Instagram’s efforts to favor Reels—from tweaking its algorithm to changing the mechanics of the home feed—the format’s engagement rate sank by 13.6% in the past month. The document then pointed out that “most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.” Facebook Reels isn’t faring any better as the short-form videos aren’t as discoverable by new users as those on Instagram.

Conversely, new social media statistics reveal that TikTok users consume content for over 10 times more hours than Instagram users are watching Reels. On average, TikTok users spend 197.8 million hours on the app each day, dwarfing the 17.6 million daily consumption hours of Reels. With the platform labeling itself as an entertainment app, people visit the app to be amused instead of simply trying to make connections—a fact that should resonate with marketers.

TikTok Hoards Engagement

In the world of social media marketing, engagement is held in the highest regard. And TikTok happens to be ahead of the pack in this area. According to Rival IQ’s benchmark report, median brands on the network receive an average engagement of 4.1% for every follower. This is six times higher than that of Instagram, which in turn carries much higher engagement than the likes of Facebook and Twitter.

In addition, around 33% of brands on TikTok earn an average engagement rate of over 8% per follower, which doubles the median. Meanwhile, about a third of brands receive engagement of less than 2% per follower. This raises the need for paid boosts so that smaller brands can get comparable mileage to bigger ones.

In terms of engagement rate by view, the competition between TikTok and Instagram is stiff. TikTok carries a 5.8% rate, slightly higher than Instagram’s 5.5%. This means both networks come as worthwhile options for social media campaigns, given how posts can stimulate the interest of brand followers. However, TikTok obtains these results with 2.5 times fewer posts, so once again the advantage lies with this network.

Despite the huge gains that TikTok presents, brands produce less content for the platform compared to Facebook and Instagram. But its sustained popularity through the COVID-19 pandemic is gradually opening the eyes of advertisers to its true value as a marketing tool. Meta better get its act together before TikTok catches up to its networks in this space.