As its answer to TikTok, Reels is clearly a particularly important priority for Meta. Which is why a number of its platforms’ recent feature updates often involve Reels. And today’s announcement was not exempt from Meta’s push to make Reels just as competitive as TikTok.
On Thursday, Meta announced that it would be bringing Reels to Facebook Groups, mentioning it as one of three new ways for users to “to connect over shared interests.” Facebook group members and admins will be able to add “audio, text overlay and filters on top of their videos before sharing to bring their stories to life.”
Beside their blog post announcement, the enabling of Reels in Groups was also announced via Facebook’s 6th Facebook Communities Summit, a screenshot of which is below.
Meta is also continuing to further connect its two flagship social media platforms, Instagram and Facebook, to each other. In the same announcement, it was also revealed that you’ll be able to share public Facebook events to an Instagram story.
The screenshot of this feature that was shared with Digital Trends seems to show an in-progress Instagram story that features basic information for an upcoming Facebook event and what looks like a button link that says “See Event Page.”
While Reels struggles to keep up with TikTok, it is kind of nice to see Meta focusing more on developing the aspects of its platforms that aren’t TikTok clones, such as Facebook Groups and Events. Even if it means part of that development will involve bringing Reels along for the ride as well.
It seems like a more worthwhile pursuit for Meta would be to develop the unique parts of its platforms that its users still value instead of merely chasing TikTok or the next new thing that comes along.
You just opened X and started typing your thoughts. Imagine the jump scare when a hand suddenly pops up on your screen, pointing at the promote button. It doesn’t say a word and simply points. For a growing number of X users, this isn’t a made-up scenario but something they have been seeing since yesterday, and very few of them are amused.
Most of us have learned to tune out the usual in-app upsells, whether it’s a glowing upgrade banner or a pop-up about a premium plan. A floating hand hovering over your draft is much harder to ignore, and that’s probably the whole point.
Scroll through any app for five minutes, and you’ll find someone maxxing something. Their skin, their sleep, their protein intake, even their Friday night on the couch. That little suffix has been everywhere this year, and now it has a trophy to show for it. In a recent announcement, Dictionary.com named maxxing its 2026 Word of the Year.
What are people actually doing when they’re maxxing?
Instagram is testing a new format for long-form videos called Features. It allows select creators to upload horizontal videos running up to 90 minutes long. Instagram has already tested the new format with creators in Brazil, and now, it's expanding to tens of thousands of creators across the US.
How will Instagram's new Features format work?