It feels like déjà vu, but Meta is cutting Reels payouts for creators again. It looks like Reels aren’t as lucrative as they thought, so the company has decided to stop offering Reels Play bonus deals to creators, on both Instagram and Facebook.
Mosseri admits Instagram went too far showing videos over photos
We’ve ranted about Instagram hating photographers and turning into TikTok, with a gazillion reels it forces upon us no matter how much prefer photos. But when Instagram CEO himself admits the app’s gone too far with pushing videos, we know we’re right.
On his Instagram profile, Adam Mosseri recently shared a Story admitting that things have gone a bit out of control. He said that Instagram indeed went too far with pushing videos, but promised a better balanced for those of us who’d still rather look at pretty pictures.
Is VERO the solution to the Instagram problem?
It’s fair to say that almost all Instagram users are peeved at the crazy drop in engagement lately. If this was the only concern we had, I guess we’d stick with the program and find a solution, but it isn’t. The other major curveball that flew in at us is that the photo-sharing app is now apparently focused on anything but photos. Reels, videos, and ads are flooding our feeds, and countless photographers are voting with their feet and starting to build a presence on VERO in Peter McKinnon’s wake. He has put out two YouTube videos to encourage people over to VERO in the past month, which can be found here and here. Now, I’m a big fan of Peter and his achievements, but let’s look at this in the most entertaining way possible: a fight!
VERO is built around being ‘True Social.’ They proudly state that they’re ad-free and algorithm-free. This is where Instagram started, and users are calling for a chronological feed to be brought back as standard, replacing the algorithm-driven feed we have now. There is a way to achieve this, but it requires some tapping around. Let’s give VERO a point for this.
Instagram is about to cram even more ads into your feed
If you thought there’s no corner on Instagram without ads, you’re wrong, my good friend. Meta can always make room for more, and that’s exactly what it’s about to do.
As the company is struggling with a major financial loss, it needs a way to generate more revenue. So, Instagram is about to get even more ads, and they’re going to be everywhere.
Instagram Reels’ engagement sucks, leaked report shows
In an attempt to be as popular as TikTok, Instagram has been pushing Reels in every possible way. One would say that the platform is seeing a benefit from turning almost everything into a Reel. However, judging from a recently leaked report, this isn’t quite true. It’s exactly the opposite.
According to the report, Instagram users are not really spending much time watching TikTok-esque short-form videos. What’s more. it appears that most Reels users “have no engagement whatsoever.”
You can now cross-post Instagram Reels to Facebook
Instagram likes Reels. It likes them so much that it turns all your videos into them, and now it lets you cross-post them to Facebook too. From now on, if you use both social media apps, you can post your Reels directly to both of them.
Along with cross-posting between the apps, some other changes are coming to Instagram as well. And yes, of course, they’re Reels-related. But if you’ve started gathering likes and comments through the TikTok-esque short videos, you may actually like these.
After user backlash, Instagram gives up on becoming “Tinstatok”… For now
I don’t remember people complaining more about Instagram ever since its algorithm-based Feed replaced the chronological one. But it looks like users are fed up with the app’s efforts to become a poor copy of TikTok. So fed up, in fact, that it made Instagram ditch the changes it’s been making to the app recently. Or at least they’re ditching them until the dust settles.
Instagram responds to video backlash: “The world is changing fast, we need to evolve”
I’ve noticed lately that a lot of Instagram users have been complaining about the reach they get on photos. I experienced it myself: the reach on Reels with absolutely the same subject is much higher, even though I’m way better at taking photos than I am at making Reels.
There has been a lot of criticism about this, and a recent report even suggests that Instagram cuts your reach for photos by 44%. It looks like the company’s CEO Adam Mosseri couldn’t ignore the backlash anymore. So, he recently responded to it in a video, saying that Instagram will keep supporting photos but that “it needs to evolve.”
Report: Instagram’s Reels cut reach for photos by nearly 50%
It’s not a secret that Instagram has been prioritizing Reels over photos for quite a while now. I’ve seen many creators and artists switching to TikTok-esque short-form videos, complaining that they feel like they need to do it if they want to keep their reach.
As a recent report shows, it’s not merely a feeling. Social media marketing platform Later did a thorough analysis of Instagram content to compare the reach of traditional posts between 2019 and 2022. As it appears, the reach for traditional posts decreased by 44%! Could Reels be to blame?
Instagram’s new test turns all videos into reels
Instagram really, really wants you to post Reels. It wants it so much that all your videos are now automatically being turned into them.
At the moment, some users are unable to post videos unless they’re in the Reels form. Social media consultant Matt Navarra spotted it first and shared a screenshot on Twitter. And Meta later confirmed – all videos are taking the new form.
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