Alongside Zoom and Peacock, TikTok found itself amongst the highest three fastest-growing brands in 2020 (according to Morning Consult). This explosion in popularity didn’t go unnoticed by other social media outlets, though. It prompted Instagram to launch Reels in August of last year.
Unsurprisingly, Instagram is now rolling out a replacement feature that functions very similarly to TikTok’s beloved Stitch feature.
Use ‘Remix’ to React to Other Instagram Reels
Matt Navarra, former Director of Social Media at next Web, took to Twitter on Friday to tip his hat to user @riodevale, who found what looks to be Instagram’s newest addition: the power to “remix” Reels. It’s now available for select users for testing.
Instagram is now testing its ‘Remix’ feature for Reels publicly
It’s basically Instagram’s copy of TikTok’s ‘Stitch’ feature
h/t @riodevale pic.twitter.com/fN7XdAn58W
— 🟣 Matt Navarra (@MattNavarra) March 26, 2021
You can check to ascertain if you’ve got the new feature by open the choices menu (tap the “…” icon) when viewing a Reel. If you’re a part of the test group, you will see the Remix This Reel option on the list.
Selecting this may allow you to make a response clip, with the first Reel and your newly recorded video playing side-by-side. Seem familiar? That’s probably because Duets on TikTok more or less have an equivalent concept.
Last October, reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi found the primary mention of “Remix” in Instagram’s code.
#Instagram keeps working on the #Reels remix feature, here's the introducing screen 👀 pic.twitter.com/llPJOTPTjE
— Alessandro Paluzzi (@alex193a) October 30, 2020
At the time, Paluzzi detailed that Reel creators can choose whether their Reel was available for remixing. He also said that if a Reel was deleted, it might be faraway from all remixes also.
Every Major Social App Wants to Compete With TikTok
In November 2018, TikTok reported that it had 680 million monthly active users. Wallaroo estimates the app has around 1.1 billion as of February 2021. Other social media and photo/video-sharing apps want to require a number of that userbase for themselves.
This month of March, Snapchat announced it had been performing on remixes for Snaps, and YouTube unrolled Shorts within the US. In January, two TikTok clones, Clash and Byte, merged to make one big TikTok clone.
Even Facebook is trying to compete with TikTok, having released Collab at the top of last 2020.
Short-form video content is dominating the content marketing scene immediately, and really, it had been sure to happen eventually. Social media is usually pumping us with new information, so we’ve pretty short attention spans. We’re more likely to observe a video from start to finish if it’s a shorter length.
And not only that, but the pandemic is additionally keeping folks indoors more frequently, which frequently means spending time online. Will TikTok remain the only popular app of the bunch, or will one among its clones kick it off the throne?
