Topline
Facebook has started testing a feature in India that allows some creators of the company’s TikTok-clone, Instagram Reels, to share their clips on their Facebook accounts, posting Facebook’s popular social platform to the list of services that are trying to replicate the success of the TikTok short video app that has risen in popularity among Gen-Z users.
Reels was first launched on Instagram by Facebook in August last year.
NurPhoto through Getty Images
Key facts
As part of the test, a select group of Indian creators can choose to allow their Instagram Reels cookies to be recommended on Facebook, the Economic Times recitation.
Facebook will also have its own version of the Reels feature on its main app, Reuters reported separately.
India is one of the rare major internet markets where both Facebook and Instagram do not face competition from TikTok as the app was banned in the country last year along with a large number of hackers. other apps in China, amid diplomatic tensions between India and China.
A large number
410 million. That is the total number of users that Facebook has in India, according to data released last month by India’s IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad. This makes India the largest market by far, with the United States and Canada having a Facebook user base of 258 million. In comparison there are 210 million users in India so the expansion to Facebook opens Reels to a much larger user base.
Key background
Instagram Reels was launched in August last year when Facebook joined other social platforms such as YouTube and Snapchat in an attempt to offer an alternative to TikTok which has quickly gone up . Reels was not the first time that Facebook has copied competing companies, as the social giant has tweaked popular features from competing apps several times in the past to include messages that Snapchat, main Snapchat stories and live Twitch game streaming among many others. Unlike TikTok, which is a standalone app, Reels is currently available within Instagram and now Facebook apps, which may restrict content access.
What do you look
It remains to be seen whether Facebook Reels will bring WhatsApp, the largest social platform in India, which has over 530 million users in the country. Previously, Facebook implemented the Snapchat-inspired ‘Stories’ feature across its three platforms in steps.
Further reading
Facebook allows users to create and view Reels on its platform (Economic Times)
As Facebook launches TikTok Clone, A look back at 6 other competing results it copied (Forbes)