Instagram is not shy about pushing users towards Reels. The platform has been paying creators for views through its Reels Play Bonus program and promotes Reels as a tool to unlock growth on the platform.
But content creators on the platform haven't entirely jumped on the bandwagon, even if the feature amplifies reach and engagement, according to new data from influencer-marketing platform HypeAuditor.
Only 22% of content posted by influencers in July were Reels, according to HypeAuditor's recent study which analyzed more than 77 million Instagram posts from its internal database.
Photos were the most popular type of post in July, making up 42% of content on the platform. Carousel posts — which can include both photos and videos — made up 26%, and regular video content — i.e. videos that are not Reels — made up about 9.6% of Instagram content in July. (Last month, the Meta-owned platform announced that all videos under 15-minutes would now be Reels.)
How photos and Reels stack up
While influencers may be slow to adopt Reels, the video posts topped nearly every engagement metric, as well as estimated reach, according to HypeAuditor.
The only engagement category in which Reels didn't outperform photo posts was comments — and only by a margin of 2%.
Here's how engagement compares, according to HypeAuditor's data:
| Metric | Photo Posts | Reels |
| Reach | 29.9% | 33.8% |
| Likes | 24.6% | 35.4% |
| Comments | 30% | 28% |
Instagram doubled down on Reels last June, when head of Instagram Adam Mosseri said in a video that the app was "no longer a photo-sharing platform."
One year later, the decision to move away from photos and lean into algorithmic full-screen video would come back to bite Instagram, as its users complained about the platform's TikTok-like changes and the app walked back its efforts.
Despite the negativity from users, Reels' algorithm and appearance seem to captivate viewers on the app, accounting for nearly 20% of time spent on Instagram as of April, according to the platform. In July, Meta shared that time spent on Reels across Instagram and Facebook had increased by 30% between April and June.
Plus, influencers may soon have a reason to start using Reels more: "Our work on ads monetization efficiency for Reels is actually making faster progress than we'd expected," Mark Zuckerberg told analysts during Meta's second quarter earnings call last month.
