Soon, Instagram would be downranking Reels videos that are not originally made in the platform. This indicates that all content that is reshared from other applications such as TikTok or any platform for short video making would be downranked. Clearly, this step would give more importance and credit to content original to this platform.
Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram recently took to Twitter to announce these new updates to the platform. In a video, he gives the explanation as how Instagram would be adding three new features to the app. These include product tags, enhanced people tags, and higher ranking for originals Reels of Instagram. Users are wondering as to what would happen to Reels that are reshared videos from one’s own page on other platforms. Would those videos be considered ‘any less original’ than the ones user create on Instagram Reels directly? Clearly, users would find out as soon as the details come out.
“If you create something from scratch, you should get more credit than if you are resharing something that you found from someone else,” Mosseri said in the video. This change leaves a few things up in the air.
As a response to a comment, Mosseri specified that ‘identifying originality is hard.’ The platform would slowly determining as to what is original or otherwise. As there isn’t enough clarity on the matter, the step could come across as a move to further convince people from not resharing videos from other platforms.
Reels have clearly done quite well in countries like India, owing to the ban placed on TikTok. However, markets where TikTok is still prevalent, Reels faces an intense challenge in the area. This clearly shows why Instagram is pushing its creators to make original content for Reels, rather than just reposting their videos made on TikTok, or some other platform. It is no surprise that they want lesser videos that have the logo of TikTok on them.
On the other hand, the two new features of Instagram are much simpler to understand. Product tags would enable users to tag products and direct some traffic to a business, creator or company. Along with it, the ‘enhanced tags’ features enables users to fix a category for themselves such as chef, rapper or dancer to make themselves more identifiable. This would be visible when someone tags the user in another post, enabling credit to come back to original page.