Not sure if this is helpful or annoying, but Instagram is currently experimenting with new notes on Reels in-stream which explain why a clip is performing well in the app.

As you can see in these screenshots, posted by app researcher Oncescu Radu (red squares added for emphasis), the new notes provide contextual insight as to the most impactful elements of each specific Reel.

Tap through on the prompt and it provides a specific breakdown of performance notes.

Here’s another example of the in-stream notes:

The tips could help you better understand what works well in Reels, and highlight the key aspects that drive reach in the app.

Which would be of interest to creators, but I’m not sure that general users will care too much about these additional data points, which take up another area of screen space. Maybe, then, Instagram is only looking to release this to Creator accounts, ensuring that they’re only shown to the people most likely to be of interest.

But it could be another way to get people thinking about Reels performance, and the factors that IG’s algorithm considers when it’s ranking Reels clips.

And definitely, more people are considering Reels in their strategy. Reels, across both Facebook and IG, are Meta’s fastest-growing content type, and are now driving over 200 billion cumulative views per day. Reels have been boosted by Meta’s shift to AI-recommended content, with more than 50% of the posts that you see in your IG feed now being funneled to you by Meta’s AI system, not from profiles that you’ve selected.

As such, more brands are looking to tap into Reels to boost their content performance and reach, and with promotional Reels also driving sales activity, these additional notes could be of value to many creators.

It’s not in live testing yet, and it might never be, but Meta is experimenting with the format internally.