We’re officially five months into quarantine and TikTok has definitely become a “thang!” Hands up if you have downloaded it, made a video or just completely lost track of time, scrolling through endless entertaining videos. And if you’re completely addicted to watching every dance challenge and silly lip-syncing videos, you might have freaked out a bit when TikTok was about to be banned in the United States over security and privacy issues.

Despite how you feel about it, you can’t deny the popularity of TikTok in 2020. So of course, Facebook just had to join in on the fun. Introducing Instagram Reels — Facebook’s response to TikTok. The introduction of Reels is exactly what Facebook did with Stories as an answer to Snapchat. Let’s be real, we all know how important Stories are to our social presence now!

The popularity of TikTok is because it gives you a quick way to create engaging and eye-catching short videos with just your phone. Truthfully, it’s more of a creation tool and less of a social media platform. We have seen this as users mastered how to artfully make their videos but, more and more, are sharing their content to their current social channels including Facebook and Instagram, where they have already amassed their followings!

Due to the uncertainty of TikTok’s future, we can also except people to start to learn to use Reels despite its current user difficulties. TikTok has been banned in other countries and the clock is ticking (all puns intended) for them here in the U.S. if they’re unable to store user data domestically and work a purchase deal with the likes of Microsoft. Enter Reels as your viable option to make engaging and awesome videos!

Insider Tip: Including Reels into your Instagram content can prove to be helpful to reach new audiences! Because its Facebook’s newest Instagram feature, they’ve prioritized its use over other pieces of content, similar to what happened when they rolled out Stories. Take a look at your feed, explore tab and the likes and you will notice which type of content is being served up more right now (Hint: Reels!) You’ll likely be rewarded in the algorithm for staying in app and using this latest feature!

At this point, the future of Reels is a little up in the air… but we believe it could be extremely useful!

Have you tried Reels? Let us know what you think!