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(CNN) – It took less than six months for the Snapchat clone of Instagram to reach the audience size of its rival and receive credit for slowing the growth of Snapchat users just as the company was preparing to make its Wall Street debut in 2017.
But Instagram and its parent company Facebook are having a harder time doing the same with TikTok.
Instagram launched Reels, a short-form video product, in the United States on August 5, days after former President Donald Trump announced plans to ban Chinese-owned TikTok in the country, causing users to panic. they will strive to find alternatives.
Six months later, it’s not taking off in the way the company expected. TikTok has survived the Trump administration and continues to be popular, with approximately 100 million users in the US, a significant impact on American pop culture, and a loyal mix of influencers who seem to be going nowhere. Unlike Stories at this point in its story, Instagram hasn’t posted any metrics about Reels so far.
“TikTok is light years away from Reels,” said Evan Asano, CEO of influencer marketing agency Mediakix, referring to TikTok’s powerful content recommendation system and the fact that the app is much more focused than Instagram’s, which has an ever-growing list of competing video offerings. .
Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, recently admitted that Reels had work to do and hinted at the need for Instagram to simplify or consolidate its various video product offerings.
“I’m still not happy with that,” Mosseri said in an interview with Verge last month about Reels. “We are growing both in terms of how much people share and how much they consume, but we have a long way to go.”
Facebook has come under scrutiny from regulators and critics for its aggressive approach to acquiring or cloning rivals to maintain its dominance in the social media market. But Instagram’s early struggles to take on TikTok are a reminder that various Facebook copycat products have either failed or fallen short. Creating a clone is easy; creating a vibrant community is not, not even for the social media giant.
Instagram has made some tweaks to the product since its launch, including giving Reels its own dedicated tab on the Instagram home screen and adding more editing tools. But Instagram Reels is still largely home to TikToks’ biggest hits, with many people re-posting popular TikTok videos with the platform’s watermark on Reels. It’s common to scroll through Reels videos and see one TikTok video after another.
“Everyone will always tell me ‘I’m going to film TikToks,’ but they never say ‘Let’s film Reels,'” said Parker Pannell, a 17-year-old with 2.4 million TikTok followers who thinks of posting to Reels as an afterthought. “TikTok creates trends, builds new creators, people create their most loyal followers [there]. People are so pleased with this TikTok environment that they are not ready to transition to another platform like Reels. “
It is not the first time that Instagram has struggled to gain ground with videos. In 2018, it launched a new long-form video feature and a standalone app called IGTV, in an attempt to better compete with YouTube, but it struggled to get off the ground. Instagram eventually removed the IGTV button from the top of people’s feeds because hardly anyone clicked on it. Now IGTV videos are part of the main feed.
With Reels, Instagram has tried to replicate much of what makes TikTok popular, including editing effects and the ability to add music or a background sound. But what is more difficult to emulate is TikTok’s powerful “For You Page” and its algorithm, which offers videos tailored to the interests of each user.
“I would never rule out Instagram in any way. They’re generally focused on how to stay on top of the competition,” said Karyn Spencer, CMO of influencer agency Whalar and former chief creator of the closed, short-form video platform. Came. . “At the same time, I don’t think any of us experience the same kind of algorithm on Instagram that we currently experience on TikTok.”
The slower startup with Reels can also highlight a broader issue with Instagram. “Doing the simple first” was long a mantra for the company, but some social media experts say the app has become increasingly complicated and confusing as more and more features are implemented. And it’s hard not to feel the influence of Facebook, especially since the founders of Instagram left in 2018.
The simplicity of TikTok gives it a “huge advantage,” said Asano of Mediakix, adding that Instagram now has shopping capabilities, stories, reels and other video formats, which he feels end up in competition with each other.
“Very soon you end up with a monster that no one can understand,” he said.
This story was first published on CNN.com. Instagram is realizing that it is not so easy to delete TikTok
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