It’s no mystery that TikTok is winning the social media battle against Instagram. Meta’s app needs to establish fresh and intriguing elements if it is to ever buck this tendency. you would assume. Nevertheless, it seems as though Instagram will carry on the Facebook adage, “If You Can’t Beat It, Copy It.” And holy crap, it’s mimicking TikTok to the hilt.

The grand scheme? create Reels for each video shared on the platform. a function that, as you may recall, was still taken from TikTok. The goal of Meta’s decision to convert all Instagram videos to Reels, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch, is “to simplify and improve the video experience.”

Reels to be the only video posts

That stands to reason, to some extent. It’s a little perplexing to have two different types of video on one site. But the narrative shifts when you step back from this. This action actually looks to be an intentional attempt to imitate TikTok as much as possible in order to retain consumers on Meta’s app.

Let’s examine the statistics. In terms of pure numbers, Instagram beats TikTok. While the latter app has 1 billion users, the former has roughly 1.4 billion. The appearance of this is favourable. But that doesn’t fully convey the situation. Who is utilising the apps, and how are they being used, is the true issue.

Instagram’s user base was eclipsed by Gen Z users of TikTok last year. To put it another way, Meta’s app is losing favour with young people. In addition to impeding future growth, this is a problem because Instagram was designed to be Meta’s gateway to young people while Facebook has evolved into the social network for baby boomers. And although advertisers still favour Instagram over TikTok, this will soon change. The current global average for Instagram usage is 28 minutes. This lasts 52 minutes on TikTok. You can’t disregard those engagement levels. In simple terms, marketers don’t fully comprehend the platform yet, which is why they aren’t rushing to switch to it.

The preponderance of the marketing sector is conservative and constantly searching for a sure bet. Although there are simple best practices for Instagram, there aren’t any yet for TikTok. Though it will. And once that happens, TikTok will unavoidably become popular with advertisers and attract their cash. It’s difficult to imagine Instagram turning every video on its site into a Reel as anything other than a response to TikTok’s growing influence given everything that is bubbling away in the background. Meta is actually in a panic. Its primary rival draws a younger demographic that uses the app for a much longer period of time than its own.