Facebook parent Meta is making it easier for people to directly share short videos from third-party apps to their Facebook pages, as it looks to expand the reach of these snippets amid rising competition.
The company is introducing Facebook Reels API (application programme interface) for developers to integrate a 'Share to Reels' feature with their apps, it said on September 19. This will enable creators and brands to share Reels from third-party desktop or web-based apps with a single button.
"We realize that many creators and brands rely on third-party tools when creating Facebook Reels and we want to enable simplicity and ease of sharing video content from their tool or app of choice through the ‘Share to Reels’ feature," the company said in a blogpost.
The launch comes nearly three months after Meta-owned Instagram introduced a similar Reels API for developers in June 2022 to enable posting Reels directly to business accounts.
The feature will allow users to post Reels to Facebook pages to which they have admin rights. Currently, it doesn't allow them to publish Reels to groups or individual users.
Meta said that this API is targeted towards social media management platforms that help manage, schedule, and post content on behalf of users, companies, and brands, content creation platforms that provide different video creation and editing tools such as templates, subtitles, editing backgrounds, and large publishers and enterprise creators developing in-house social media management tools.
At launch, the social networking giant said it has partnered with three partners who have already integrated Facebook Reels API in their respective platforms. This includes creator platform Jellysmack, social media management solution provider Sprout Social and website builder Wix.
Meta is expecting Reels to be a big money spinner in the long term since it has been one of the biggest contributors to engagement growth on Facebook and Instagram.
In July 2022, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said during the company's earnings call that the time people spent engaging with Reels across Facebook and Instagram increased by more than 30 percent in the previous quarter.
Reels ads has crossed an annual revenue run rate of $1 billion and also has a "higher revenue run rate than the Stories format did at identical times post launch", he said.
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