Meta has announced that it will now roll out Reels APIs on the Instagram platform for developers. The company will expand the scope of support of Reels to content publishing, insights, comment moderation, hashtag search, business discovery, mentions and more. With the help of new APIs, developers will be able to schedule Reels and share them on Instagram business accounts. Meta says that developers have emphasized that Reels is one of the top priorities right now. Also Read - WhatsApp to soon let users view status updates within the chat list
Instagram Reels APIs to roll out for developers: What it means
In addition to sharing and scheduling Reels, developers will also be able to reply to comments, delete comments, hide/unhide comments and disable/enable comments on Reels. They can even find public Reels they have been mentioned in or tagged via a specific hashtag. Also Read - Instagram, YouTube don't want users to share videos on TikTok
As per the company blog, “This API enhancement will be available for the current version, and all previous versions of the Graph API. Reels will become automatically available for developers who already have access to the applicable APIs. You will not need to put your app through additional App Review, as long as your app has already been approved for the appropriate permission access levels.” Also Read - How to create an in-person event on Facebook: A step-by-step guide
As for the rollout timeline, Meta has confirmed that the APIs will start rolling out today i.e. (June 28). It will release for “<25% of Instagram user accounts” and till July 6, it will be rolled out for 100% of users. In case some do not get it today, they will need to wait it out as it will be released in a phased manner.
For the unversed, Meta is focusing a lot on Reels lately. As a part of its Q1 2022 earnings meeting, Meta disclosed that Reels now accounts for over 20 percent of the time that consumers spend on Instagram. Instagram now also allows users to pin the top three posts that can also include Reels on the top of their profiles. This way viewers don’t have to scroll all the way down to look at posts.
