Facebook Tests Instagram Reels Integration In India

As part of a new test, Instagram will now give creators in India the chance to share short videos on Facebook. According to Bloomberg, this trial will allow a small number of users in India to share Instagram Reels — brief clips using augmented reality (AR) effects — on their Facebook newsfeeds. Facebook will also rechristen its own short-form video section as “Reels on Facebook.”

This move is the latest example of Facebook following in the footsteps of its smaller rivals, such as TikTok, while using the reach of its massive social network. India is the largest part of that network.

Instagram launched Reels last year as Facebook’s answer to TikTok, the immensely popular Chinese social network. Reels allows users to craft 15-second videos with in-app editing tools, such as a timer and countdown clock, while also giving them access to a massive music library. A few months later, the service unveiled a host of new features, including shopping for IGTV, plus a redesign that offered tabs to spotlight its eCommerce section, Shops.

This comes at a time when social commerce is poised to have its breakout year, as PYMNTS reported last summer. A report from Mobile Marketer estimated the worldwide market for social commerce at nearly $90 billion in 2020, although that number will likely balloon to more than $604 billion in the net six years, a CAGR of 31.4 percent.

TikTok had been on the verge of being sold to a group that included Walmart and Oracle until the Biden administration put the deal on hold, citing security concerns. But as PYMNTS noted last year, many retailers believe that regardless of what happens with the TikTok sale, Facebook and Instagram will remain large enough to sustain social commerce.

As Bloomberg noted, this is happening as regulators such as the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are in the midst of an antitrust battle with Facebook in an effort to roll back the social media giant’s acquisitions of Instagram and the messaging platform WhatsApp.