Instagram Reels Are Getting Popular, Leaving TikTok Behind

Instagram’s reels are giving tough competition to TikTok. Meta launched this short-form video feature on Instagram in 2020. At that time, it didn’t succeed in capturing users’ attention as everyone was more fond of TikTok. But in 2024, the stats say something else. According to a survey done in March 2024 among 1000 Americans over the age of 16, 37% of the Instagram users watch reels daily while 78% watch them monthly. The survey also shows that reels are making TikTok engagements decrease as 26% of the Instagram reels users do not even open TikTok. This was 20% in September 2023.

In April, the study by research company Omdia found out that the IG reel takeover isn’t only happening in the USA but globally. Instagram reels have taken over TikTok in countries like Japan, Brazil and UK in the rankings of short-form videos. In the USA, and Brazil, IG Reels was ranked at number two (after YouTube) while TikTok was at fourth position. In Span, reels even overtook Netflix.

Instagram has quickly risen to popularity in terms of viewer engagement and short-form videos. The way people consume video content has also been transforming. TikTok has also gained a lot of popularity in the last few years as most of the Gen-Z using it as a Google. 31% of the US adults use TikTok daily which was 30% last year. Reels is the one to blame as 50% of the US adults were engaging with TikTok in September 2023, which has gone down to 46% in 2024.

There are many reasons other than reels behind TikTok’s low engagements too. TikTok introduced Creator’s Reward Program which was for creators to make longer videos on TikTok. Users want to watch shorter videos so they watch reels instead. Talks of banning TikTok in some countries have also made creators make less content on TikTok. In addition to that, YouTube Shorts are also getting popular too. 40% of the users who watch shorts on YouTube do not watch TikTok. The YouTube Shorts users who use TikTok too have decreased to 25% this year.

Read next: Top AI-Powered Text-to-Speech Convertors for Voice Overs
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World