Yesterday, Instagram announced new changes to its app that put Reels and its Shop features right in users’ faces. The company announced “big changes” to its app. The Reels and Shop tabs are now going to be featured right at the front and center of the home page, on the navigation bar. The Post and Likes buttons are being moved to the upper right corner, next to the Facebook Messenger DMs button.
Reels is the company’s answer to TikTok. It’s a sub-platform within Instagram where people can creative short vertical videos. The video camera recorder is similar to that of TikTok.
Now we’re rolling out the Reels tab to be kind of a stage, a place where people can share their creativity with the world and have a chance to break out and find an audience.
Sound familiar? Instagram’s Reels and Shop tabs aren’t even new. Prior to this update, you could find Shop and IGTV tabs were in the Search tab, and a tile that takes up most of the search tab has Reels in it.
With the Shop tab, we’re making it easy to get inspired by the creators you love, shop on Instagram, and support small businesses. You can find personalized recommendations, editors’ pics curated by our @shop channel, shoppable videos, new product collections, and more…
Instagram acknowledges that “how people create and enjoy culture has changed, and the biggest risk to Instagram is not that we change too fast, but that we don’t change and become irrelevant.
Remember when IGTV launched and Instagram put an IGTV button on the home screen? Well, it’s not there anymore because Instagram has figured out how to disguise IGTV videos into the main feed. If this move doesn’t have more Instagram users watching Reels, Instagram will probably figure out how to sandwich Reels in between IG Stories. Even now, Instagram already slides a stack of Reels thumbnails in your general feed in the same efforts.
