As we all know, social media has evolved a lot throughout the years. Videos on social media have become very popular ever since TikTok was launched. Originally known as ‘Musical.ly,’ the brand got renamed to ‘TikTok’ and still carried the same concept of video creation. The world of video creation has brought a lot of marketing opportunities for businesses of all kinds. As TikTok took off and gained a lot of attention, Instagram had to catch up. So that’s why Instagram Reels were created. Instagram has done a great job of adding new features to their one app collectively. Instagram stories were also created after Snapchat stories were created. But is this merely an advancement for Instagram, or are they just trying to copy TikTok to remain relevant?

Instagram’s Growth

Instagram was originally a smaller social media platform that was created in 2010 after Facebook but only had the concept of sharing photos. Instagram was created for the younger generation and gives users the choice to either have their profile be private or public. Since its beginning, many new features have been added to the app, for example, direct messages, the ability to save posts, daily stories and the newest addition, Reels. Each of these new features were inspired by other successful apps – Facebook, Snapchat, etc. Instagram has always tried to keep up with new features on their one platform. It’s overall a great strategy, but it can create a lot of speculation about their true intentions.

TikTok / Musical.ly

Musical.ly was a video app created in 2014, while TikTok was another created in 2018 after the company ByteDance merged the Musical.ly app and TikTok into one. All of Musical.ly’s content and user base was absorbed by the one app and renamed TikTok. Since 2018, TikTok has been consistent with bringing a lot of new and original video content to the world. Even though the platform has experienced a lot of mixed reactions from each country, it has been very successful. TikTok has been so successful that they’ve even granted a ‘Creator Fund’ for their huge list of creators who are paid for supplying more videos using the app. This really helped TikTok to become even more popular for video streaming and creation, which is why Instagram wanted to add a video feature to their app. As more video creation has been promoted, the more the need arose.

CopyCat or Catching On?

So, the question remains… Is Instagram copying TikTok with their new Reels feature, or are they simply trying to remain trendy and relevant? It could go either way. One could say that Instagram flat out copied the video feature from TikTok, while another could say that Instagram put their own twist onto the feature, so it’s not truly copying and just being trendy. But we want to know what you think. Do you think Instagram is a copycat or are they just being innovative and trendy?

If you’re interested in learning more about other popular social media platforms, take a look at Burkhart’s social media blogs.