• by Colin Kirkland , May 3, 2023

To improve the relevancy of Facebook Reels, Meta is introducing new personalization controls for its popular TikTok-copycat video format -- inviting users to customize what they want to see more or less of and scroll seamlessly between short and long-form videos.

Reels has become Meta's fastest-growing format, with people re-sharing Reels across Meta’s various apps over 2 billion times every day -- a number that has doubled over the past six months, per the company.

In continuing to focus on visibility and user controls, Meta has added Reels to the main navigation at the top of Facebook Watch to give users “quick access to short-form video.” With the rise of TikTok, this seems to be what the general public now wants most.

Meta is hoping the updated Reels placement -- and the ability to scroll between Reels and long-form videos -- will enhance the visibility of creators, trends and a wider range of video content on Facebook.

To increase the relevancy of what users are seeing in their suggested Reels feeds, Meta is unveiling two new tools: “Show More, Show Less” and contextual labels.

Aimed at helping users more easily discover the content, interests, creators and communities they enjoy (to better compete with TikTok’s unrivaled algorithm), the “Show More” and “Show Less” features work like thumbs up or down rating tools -- allowing Facebook users to choose what Reels content they want to see more and less of by increasing or decreasing the ranking score.

Finally, Meta is launching new labels on the Reels video player to explain to users why they are seeing the content they’re seeing. The company will inform a user the Reel they are watching was suggested because a friend of theirs liked it, for example.