Meta announced today that it’s adding support for longer Facebook Reels of up to 90 seconds, along with some new creative tools. Up until now, Facebook Reels were limited to 60 seconds. The changes come several months after Meta launched support for longer Instagram Reels of up to 90 seconds. The expansion followed TikTok’s move into YouTube’s territory with videos that can be up to 10 minutes in length, instead of just three.
The company is also rolling out more creative tools, including a new templates feature that lets users create Reels with trending templates. The new feature, which rolled out to Instagram Reels last year, allows users to create new Reels using the same structure as one they just watched. Templates are somewhat similar to TikTok’s own templating option.
In addition, Facebook Reels is getting a new “Grooves” feature that automatically aligns and syncs the motion in your video to the beat of your favorite song through visual beat technology. Syncing video to sounds has been a defining characteristic of TikTok, so it’s no surprise that Meta is bringing it to Facebook Reels after rolling it out for Instagram Reels last year.
It’s worth noting that all of these new Reels features first made their way to Instagram more than seven months ago, and are now being released on Facebook. It’s possible that Meta wanted to see how they were being used on Instagram Reels before bringing them over to Facebook Reels.
Facebook launched Reels last year in a move that was seen as a key part of Meta’s response to the TikTok threat. Although Meta initially saw Reels as a way to directly combat TikTok with a feature inside the Instagram app, the company soon realized it could mount a more powerful counteroffensive if it also brought Facebook into the mix and allowed for cross-posting between the two social networks.
Meta says Reels is its fastest growing format and that it continues to grow quickly. Reels plays across Facebook and Instagram have more than doubled over the last year, the company said in an email. It also noted that reshares of Reels have more than doubled on Facebook and Instagram in the last six months. Meta plans to continue to roll out new features for Reels to make it easier for creators to get discovered.
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