Meta announced today that it’s adding support for longer Facebook rolls of up to 90 seconds, along with some new creative tools. 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 territory with videos that can be up to 10 minutes long, instead of just three.
The company is also rolling out more creative tools, including a new templates feature that allows users to create roles using trending templates. The new feature, which rolled out to Instagram Reels last year, allows users to create new Reels with the same structure as the ones they just viewed. Templates are somewhat similar to TikTok’s own template option.
Image Credits: Facebook
In addition, Facebook Reels is getting a new “Grooves” feature that automatically aligns and syncs the movement in your video to the beat of your favorite song through visual beat technology. Syncing video with sounds has been a defining feature 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 over seven months ago and are now being released on Facebook. It’s possible that Meta wanted to see how they were used on Instagram Reels before bringing them to Facebook Reels.
Facebook launched Reels last year in a move seen as an important part of Meta’s response to the TikTok threat. While Meta initially envisioned Reels as a way to directly combat TikTok with a feature in the Instagram app, the company quickly realized it could mount a more powerful counteroffensive if it also brought Facebook into the mix and enabled cross-posting between the two social networks would be possible. .
Meta says Reels is the fastest growing format and continues to grow rapidly. Reels plays on Facebook and Instagram more than doubled in the past year, the company said in an email. It also noted that Reels re-sharing has more than doubled over the past six months on Facebook and Instagram. Meta plans to continue rolling out new features for Reels to make it easier for creators to get discovered.