Instagram Reels engagement is falling. It’s time to try YouTube Shorts

A leaked report shows just how concerned Meta is about falling engagement for Instagram Reels.

“Instagram users cumulatively are spending 17.6 million hours a day watching Reels, less than one-tenth of the 197.8 million hours TikTok users spend each day on that platform,” according to a Wall Street Journal piece based on a leaked Meta document titled ‘Creators x Reels State of the Union 2022.’

According to that report, Reels engagement fell 13.6% over the four weeks prior to the August study.

Just 20.7% of the 11 million US Instagram creators are using Reels, and about 30% of all Reels videos were created on another platform and posted with a branded watermark from TikTok, even though these videos are automatically downranked by Instagram’s recommendation algorithm.

Is it time to try YouTube Shorts?

While TikTok is still the leader, a growing number of creators are finding success on YouTube Shorts.

‘75% of YouTube’s 2 billion users already watch Shorts, and musicians with long-form videos on YouTube report a bump in engagement for all their YouTube content after using Shorts.

This week YouTube addewd another major reason to try Shorts – an easy path to monetization that Reels and TikTok do not offer

Shorts creators can join the YouTube Partner Program after 10 million views on the platform over the last 90 days. YouTube’s existing Partner Program requires a minimum of 1,000 subscribers and 4,000 viewing hours in the last year.

Whichever method they use to qualify as Partners, they will now earn 45% of ad revenue from their Shorts.

To support newer creators, YouTube is also planning a new Partner level with lower requirements to offer earlier access to Fan Funding features like Super Thanks, Super Chat, Super Stickers and Channel Memberships.

Bruce Houghton is Founder and Editor of Hypebot and MusicThinkTank and serves as a Senior Advisor to Bandsintown which acquired both publications in 2019. He is the Founder and President of the Skyline Artists Agency and a professor for the Berklee College Of Music.