We strive to make Instagram a home for creators like you to express your creativity, connect with your audience, and make a living. Today, we’re announcing improvements to Reels — to let you do what you do best.
Find out what’s trending in drums
Creators are always looking to discover fresh content ideas, so now we’re adding a dedicated destination to get inspired by the latest trends. You’ll be able to see the most popular songs in Reels, see how many times the audio has been used, tap to use it, or save the audio for yourself.
You’ll also be able to see what the most popular topics and hashtags are on Reels to inform your own content. For example, festival season can trend sooner than you think. We’ve found that people actually start sharing their #coachella content before the festival even starts. These are the types of insights you can tap into with the new trends destination.
Ease of editing rolls
We make it easy for you to edit your Instagram rolls by bringing together videos, audio, stickers and text on a unified editing screen. This makes it easier to align and sync elements of your reel to the right moments in a more visual way. Stay tuned for even more exciting tools as we continue to invest in more ways to make editing your drums easier and easier. This is available globally, on iOS and Android devices.
Reels Insights Updates
We’re improving Reels insights to help you better understand how your content is performing. We’re adding two new metrics: Total Watch Time and Average Watch Time – and making it easy to see your insights while viewing your reels directly.
Total watch time covers the total time your reel has been played, including any time spent replaying the reel. Average watch time captures the average time spent playing your reel, calculated by dividing the watch time by the total number of plays. For example, if your average watch time is 17 seconds, of everyone who watched your Reel, they watched an average of 17 seconds. This will help you better understand where people are engaged or where you may need to create a stronger hook to get viewers to stay longer.
“The number of views is only one part of evaluating the performance of your reels. It’s really important to go in and understand how your reels are performing based on specific variables. I often test different hooks or opening lines. Seeing the watch time will help me understand where viewers are dropping off and then I can adjust the hook from there. Insights help me bridge the gap between me as a creator and my audience. I might think a video is amazing, but seeing the watch time will give me a better understanding of where my viewers are engaged.” – @sckachi, comedy creator in LA
“Sometimes I’ll reshoot a video based on video insights. For example, I’ve learned that people stop watching if I hold up a product in my beauty tutorials for too long, so I’ve adapted my editing to make those scenes shorter and keep viewers engaged.” – @schaebreezy_, based in Los Angeles creator of beauty
We’re also adding a new way to see how your reels contribute to your growth. You will now get a notification with new followers from your reels.
Improve and expand gifts on reels
Today, we’re excited to share our plan to bring gifts to even more creators with upcoming expansions to more markets, including Australia, Canada, France, Mexico, New Zealand and the UK, in the coming weeks.
We’re also adding a new feature to show you which fans have sent you a gift so you can recognize your supporters. If you tap the heart icon next to your supporters, they’ll receive a notification that you’ve seen and acknowledged their gift, providing an even stronger sense of connection between you and your fans.
Creators like you inspire people and shape everyday culture. We’re committed to building more products to help you grow and thrive on Instagram, and today’s updates are just a few of the ways we’re investing in your success. Learn more about how we support creators on Instagram and Facebook.