Lately, one-second reels and content around sports, especially cricket on Meta’s social media platforms have been gaining significant traction, with many creators adopting these trends. On Thursday, Meta launched its Creator Lab in India, an educational content series featuring popular Instagram creators from India. The series will be available in English and Hindi, with captions in five additional languages.
In addition, Instagram has introduced new features such as comments in stories, birthday notes, and cutouts in DMs. Paras Sharma, Director of Global Partnerships for India at Meta, spoke to Storyboard18 about content trends in India. He also discussed how the Gen Z audience is adapting to newer trends like one-second reels and sports content on the platform.
Talking about trends on Instagram, Sharma said, “I think there are a couple of ways to look at it. There are momentary trends that are very specific in nature, and then there are longer-term behavioral changes in content creation and user engagement. We are also noticing experimental content on the platform, which is largely created and consumed by Gen Z creators and audiences.”
He added, “We mainly pick up signals from Gen Zs because they are the biggest experimenters. They are the fastest to adopt something new and also the quickest to pivot to something else depending on technological changes.”
When asked about Meta’s investment in sports properties, Sharma said, “There are two aspects: global events and India-specific events. For example, the ICC has its cricket calendar for India, so these events aren’t hosted by Meta. Similarly, a movie release is part of the broader ecosystem.”
Sharma said, “So, if there’s a cricket tournament that’s part of the Indian cricket calendar, like the Indian Premier League, there are different stakeholders involved, including our partners, whether it’s a broadcaster like Star Sports or other networks. Likewise, we work closely with teams or franchises like Mumbai Indians and Chennai Super Kings. We also engage with former cricketers, athletes, and commentators on an ongoing basis during these tournaments, creating meaningful collaboration opportunities for creators, something we have been doing for years.”
During these events, we bring creators on board to produce content, demonstrating our continued investment and commitment to events on the calendar. He added.
When asked if content related to cricket is increasing on Meta platforms, Sharma said, “Cricket is the largest sport in India. Internationally, we work closely with the ICC, and in India, we collaborate with the BCCI and broadcasters like JioCinema and Hotstar.”
Expanding on sports content on Meta platforms, Sharma said, “When we look at our own study on Gen Z and sports fandom in India, cricket is the biggest, followed by badminton, even before the Olympics. We are also seeing highly passionate communities for football and Formula 1.”
When asked if the duration of content creation on Meta platforms has decreased, Sharma said, “There’s a format trend right now, and one-second content is part of that trend. But the real cause behind it is the behavior of the audience. There is a need to reduce the pressure of content creation. Creators don’t want to spend too much time and prefer to show their real selves, making their content more conversational on Instagram.”
Sharma explained, “This is about everyday creativity that isn’t polished but is instead a quick reflection of this generation’s desire to create a conversational, quirky piece—whether it’s an audio clip, a physical movement, or a visual element.”
He further noted, “We’re seeing more and more creators emerging from tier two and tier three towns, and that trend is here to stay. This is a moment-in-time trend, using Meta-AI, and India is the largest country for the use of Meta-AI. The reason why this one-second reel format is gaining traction on Instagram is that a huge number of people are engaging with it, and we have seen some amazing content come out of it.”