A leaked internal report has revealed that Instagram Reels get 10 times less engagement than videos on TikTok.
The report, from the Wall Street Journal, uncovered new internal documents that show that Instagram users are spending 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, which is less than one-tenth of the 197.8 million hours that TikTok users spend scrolling each day on that network.
The document was published in August internally and showed that Reels engagement had been falling, dropping 13.6% over the previous four weeks, and that 'most Reels users have no engagement whatsoever.'
“Our monetisation growth is faster than we expected”
In response to the report, Meta dismissed the numbers as outdated and not global in scope, but declined to give the Journal different numbers
“We still have work to do,” Meta spokeswoman Devi Narasimhan said to the WSJ. “But creators and businesses are seeing promising results, and our monetisation growth is faster than we expected as more people are watching, creating and connecting through Reels than ever before.”
In July of this year, the company was forced to roll back a series of changes that included full screen videos and photos after users - including celebrities like Kylie Jenner - criticised it for copying TikTok.
To incentivise more engagement on the platform, Instagram recently announced a creators' fund that's set to pay out $1bn by the end of this year.
The news comes as Meta shifts its investemtns to short form video after launching Reels in August 2020.
View the Wall Street Journal report here