Internal Meta documents show that TikTok copycat Instagram Reels’ users make up less than 10 percent of the time spent on TikTok. Cheddar News breaks down the rest of the report comparing the two short-form content platforms

Opening Bell

Instagram Stumbles in Push to Mimic TikTok Internal Documents Show

any user knows that instagram reels is a copycat of Tiktok, but new internal meta documents obtained by the Wall Street Journal show, the instagram competitor may not be performing as well as the original. Now, Michelle, I'm glad you're here to break all of this down. I feel like you and I could dedicate an entire show to social media alone. But tell us what this internal report from meta said, Well, the Wall Street Journal Was able to get these internal documents and what they did show was that reels was getting about 17.6 million hours a day on reels, but which sounds great. But if you look at Tiktok's numbers, it was at 197.8 million hours a day, less than 10% of time spent on reels is being spent compared to Tiktok. Other things that were really Interesting were real engagement rates. They were down about 13.6% over the past four weeks. And most real users don't even have any engagement with the platform. So they're not liking, they're just passing it by. And you can remember back when there was that backlash that we're getting more video on our platform and they were gonna make all long form videos reales kind of makes sense. Now there are one million creators on Instagram in the us, but only 20.7% post Even monthly. So it is showing that a lot of people are moving away from the platform, as I mentioned before, they were a little annoyed when it was going. So video centric, I've even seen some backlash where people post photos as reels and then use the audio saying, Hey, if Instagram isn't going to serve as photos, here's a photo as a real, so Asia, I'm just curious with that monthly sat about 20.7. How often do you post on instagram? And do you use reels personally? Yeah, I think I'm kind of in that camp, I'm just sporadic, I'm all over the place. I have no consistency on instagram and I think back to like, I don't know if you remember this like 2015 2016 when being an instagram influencer was really kind of the focus of social media and it was all about matching your content, posting regularly multiple times a day. I really now just post kind of whenever I want to, I don't really think about it that often, but I do use reels as a video content creator just not consistently. Um, but I'm wondering here why you think instagram is so interested in copying Tiktok? I feel like I already know the answer. We've seen this across the board with other features from other platforms, namely I think of snap and I g highlights, but do you think there's a specific reason why instagram is really gunning for this moment to try to become a short form video platform, you know, I think because there's so much potential to use this platform for e. Com And we've started to see Tiktok, you know, I've seen on Tiktok, I bought Tiktok made me buy it. I bought so many things because of Tiktok and actually sensor tower had pulled some data and they showed that north of $600 million $694.3 million us because of Tiktok, that's up about 463% year over year in the us and it's been downloaded so many times now when you look at the global numbers for the potential for e commerce, um, you're looking at over $1.1 billion just in the US alone in the next few years of people who will buy products because of social media. And so I think this is where we're seeing the growth by 2025 it's gonna be at 1.143 according to insider intelligence. So there is just this idea that you can get another revenue stream, that's kind of advertising related, but also a little bit more with a little bit more. Um, I guess a little bit more up to it. So I think that's where instagram wants to see its place space. You just can't keep adding ads on instagram in the feet and not getting people annoyed. But one thing I've noticed is that trends pop faster on Tiktok. I mean, there's jokes about this on instagram reels that you'll, you'll go to reels after it's already trending on Tiktok for months and I don't get as much engagement on my reels anymore. I'm also not that consistent at posting, but I was really curious asia, which one do you prefer? Oh my gosh, I feel like this is a trap, but Tiktok all the way when it comes to trends. I think I turn more to instagram when it comes to aspirational content, kind of what it's been known for, its bread and butter for better or worse. But you know, it's interesting that you talk about engagement, we've heard this coming from really top figures on the plateau form like a kylie Jenner, kim Kardashian and also recently I saw this from rapper Lotto saying they used to have engagement on this platform and now all you see largely is reels or carousel. But I think it would have been smarter for meta and I know there are so many like anti regulation, anti trust issues with this. But I think it would have been smarter to really go for trying to purchase a Tiktok because you really can't duplicate the culture that exists on that platform by implementing a lot of those features, but that's just my two cents. I know there are so many hurdles to overcome when it comes to that, but you and I can talk about this, like I said all day, yeah, Tiktok for entertainment instagram just to keep up with my friends