Meta on Tuesday announced an expansion of the availability of ‘Reels’ — the company’s take on short-form, TikTok-like video content, for Facebook on iOS and Android to Canada and more than 150 other countries across the globe.
“Reels is our fastest growing content format by far,” said Facebook’s parent company. Meta originally introduced Reels on Facebook’s sister social media platform, Instagram, in 2020. For Facebook users, the feature was previously only available in the U.S.
The company’s Reels Play bonus program, which is part of a $1 billion USD investment on creators, pays eligible creators up to $35,000 a month based on the views they accumulate on qualifying Reels.
Alongside global availability for Facebook Reels, Meta also announced new monetization options for Reels creators through ad revenue share and fan support. Facebook Reels Overlay Ads, which currently supports banner ads and sticker ads in Reels content, is now available in Canada, the US, and Mexico.
Creators in Canada, the US, and Mexico who are already part of Meta’s in-stream ads program will automatically become eligible to monetize their publicly-shared reels with ads. Meta plans on bringing these monetization features, which are currently in the testing phase, to “nearly all countries where in-stream ads are available” by March.
The company has also started rolling out the following new editing features for Reels:
- Remix: Create your own reel alongside an existing, publicly-shared reel on Facebook. When you create a Remix, you can create a reel that includes all or part of another creator’s reel.
- 60-second Reels: Make reels up to 60 seconds long.
- Drafts: You will soon be able to create a reel and choose to “Save As Draft” below the Save button.
- Video Clipping: In the coming months, we’re planning to roll out video clipping tools that will make it easier for creators who publish live or long-form, recorded videos to test different formats.
Going forward, Facebook Reels will be visible and discoverable in Stories, Groups, the Watch tab, at the top of a user’s Feed, and as suggested Reels in the Feed (in select countries). Meta is also working on more cross-platform support for Reels between Facebook and Instagram, including cross-posting between the two.
