Facebook launches Instagram Reels globally, with more features

“Reels is already our fastest growing content format by far, and today we’re making it available to everyone on Facebook globally,” Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in a Facebook post on Tuesday.

He said Facebook wants Reels to be the best place for creators to connect with their community and make a living, “so we’re launching new monetization tools too”.

Meta launched Reels on Instagram in 2020 and on Facebook in 2021 in response to widely popular short-video app TikTok, which is owned by Chinese tech giant ByteDance.

Today, Zuckerberg announced that Meta is adding creative tools to Facebook Reels like Remix, and the ability to create a Reel from an existing story. “We’re also building video clipping tools so that creators who publish live or long-form, recorded videos can test different formats,” he said.

The company, which says video now accounts for half of the time people spend on Facebook, also announced new ways for creators to make money through the Reels feature.

It said it was expanding its program to pay creators bonuses to more countries and was testing overlay ads using banners and stickers for creators to earn ad revenue. It would roll out full-screen ads between Reels soon.

Meta also said it would roll out updates for users to make and see Facebook Reels in new places, such as in its Stories feature, its Watch tab and at the top of the news feed. 

With inputs from Reuters