Waiting in the Wings
Instagram’s Reels, launched in 2020, was designed specifically to compete with TikTok. A recent (and not universally loved) decision to switch from square to rectangular profile grids is a measure of exactly how much emulation there is.
The two platforms have always fought a close battle, with Business Insider reporting last June that increased engagement with Reels was directly correlated with decreased usage of TikTok.
The report quotes a Morgan Stanley survey of 2,000 US consumers, which revealed that more than a third of Instagram users use Reels daily, and 78% engage with it monthly. But specifically, it revealed that 26% of reels users are not using TikTok at all, which is an increase on the previous year’s percentage.
The Meta team may be suggesting that TikTok’s popularity is waning but its incoming changes to moderation (and TikTok’s possible reprieve) might yet change the rankings.
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