Meta has launched a short video product for the blue app in 150 countries.
It's likely that this is a bid to restore its user base and revenue.
The company began testing its short video platform within the Facebook app in India in March of last year. This feature was launched in the US in September.
Is the global launch of Reels enough to fix its sinking ship?
The past few weeks have been rough for the social media giant. It was the first time in history that its daily active user count dipped. The firm lost more than $250 billion from its market cap.
Meta's current valuation is $550 billion. Its market cap was $921 billion on December 31, 2021.
Meta has fallen out of the top 10 most valuable companies in the world. That is not encouraging.
Zuck said it will lose more than $10 billion in ad revenue due to Apple's privacy-focused changes.
Recently, Facebook urged employees to consider each other Metamates to focus on virtual worlds and experiences.
A huge development budget was set aside by the company. Reality Labs had a loss of over $10 billion last quarter.
It would take a few years before the world would be profitable, according to the most recent earnings call by the company. The future is not here yet.
TikTok has been eating lunch with Meta. Despite being banned in India, the short video platform is the third largest social network in the world.
Hank Green, one of the creators of popular YouTube channel VlogBrothers noted that the rapid growth of TikTok could eventually lead to creators making less money. Leaving the platform with that.
Matt Navarra, a UK-based social media consultant, said this is where Meta's opportunity lies. The company has the advantage of giving them more effective tools to generate a stable revenue stream.
In a call with investors, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that Reels is the company's fastest-growing content format so far this year and that it is one of the prime focus areas for the company. He said that you might see more short videos in the News Feed and other areas of the app.
The company said that adverts in Reels bring in less revenue than those in Feeds or Stories, but it expects improvements over time. Navarra feels that its issues with an aging demographic as well as certain advertisers boycotting the platform will still be obstacles in overall growth.
The company's main aim is to restore user growth, according to Itai Elizur, COO at MarketAcross.
Meta has a long history of doing ‘clones’ or copies of key features in competing platforms. The main objective [of this Reels expansion] is hindering the growth of other platforms, and not so much gaining direct ad revenue.
Facebook seems to be trying to squeeze money from Reels. The company is testing new ads in the US, Canada, and Mexico. With the global expansion of Reels, we can expect this feature to show up in more places.
In the next few months, Facebook will start putting full-screen ads in between two reels.
This is a huge source of money for the company. The business is going to get even harder with the introduction of a new privacy sandbox by the company.
It looks like the golden bullet Zuck is hoping for is not Facebook Reels.
Elizur said that advertisers are less in control of where their ad will appear on Facebook because of the company's new approach. Facebook won't see an immediate increase in ad revenue through short videos.
Zuck will just have to play the waiting game, because it may come and it will probably help settle some nerves at the company.
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