# Facebook Reels for archive clips under Meta's 2026 originality rules

Skill date: 26 Oct 2026 (skills harvest 18:22). Status for Cedwyn: applies to clips already being posted. Any change to the posting plan is a PROPOSAL.

## What Meta changed (Meta Newsroom, "Rewarding Original Creators on Facebook", 12-13 Mar 2026, read in full)
- **Results:** views and time spent watching **original Reels roughly doubled in H2 2025 compared with H2 2024**, as Meta pushed original content and demoted unoriginal content. Meta removed 20M+ accounts impersonating large creators in 2025.
- **Original:** content filmed or produced by the Page or profile owner. A Reel that uses third-party material is original only when the focus is a creator **presenting something genuinely new** (fresh information or analysis).
- **Unoriginal (deprioritised):**
  - watching along, reacting, **stitching clips together**, or **narrating what is already on screen without adding anything**;
  - re-uploads of posts the Page did not make;
  - small edits to others' content (borders, captions, speed changes).
- **Penalty:** a Page that keeps posting mostly unoriginal content can become **non-recommendable and demonetised**. Appeals exist.
- **Protection:** the content protection tool flags copies of your original Reels. Check access in the professional dashboard.

## Format data (Buffer, "Best content format on social platforms in 2026", 45M+ posts, published 19 Mar 2026, read in full)
- **Facebook median engagement:** images **5.20%**, video **4.84%**, text **4.76%**, **link posts lowest at 4.43%**. Facebook is the most format-neutral platform in the set.
- **Reach vs engagement:** across platforms, video and Reels win reach while images and carousels win engagement. Buffer's Facebook-specific Reels reach multiple was only in a search snippet, not checked.
- **What this means for us:** use Reels to reach new people, image posts to engage the people we already have, and keep links out of the post body.

## Playbook
1. **Make every Reel ours.** Use our own narration (voice or on-screen text that adds the record's meaning), our own scans and photos, and our own renders. Never re-post third-party footage or a news clip, even with captions added: under Meta's rules that is unoriginal, and it is a copyright risk too.
2. **Use third-party material only as cited stills inside our own analysis.** The new information is the point: what the record shows and why it matters. The source goes in the caption.
3. **Keep it vertical, 15-60 s, with a hook in the first 2 s.** That hook is the record image plus a question. Burned-in captions are fine, because they are our own production.
4. **Keep links out of the caption.** Put the shop link in the first comment, since link posts score lowest. Use UTM `utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=reel`.
5. **Alternate formats:** a Reel for reach, then an image post (a record scan with a question) for engagement. Stay inside the 6-posts-a-day cap the bizdev runs already observe.
6. **Turn on content protection** if the dashboard offers it, and check monthly for copies.
7. **Measure monthly in Meta Business Suite:** Reel plays, 3-second views, average watch time, follows from the Reel, and link clicks (first comment, by UTM). If watch time is under 30% of length, shorten the next one.

## How we apply it to Cedwyn
- **Page:** Great House Farm II (901925066346636). The Calan Gaeaf video posted today is our own production, so it counts as original.
- **Rule for the queue: no ITV News 1988 footage re-uploaded.** Cite it in text instead: "the family acquired Tŷ Mawr in 1667 (1974 newspapers; ITV News 1988)", with no hedge.
- **Proposal: the 12 queued IG/FB posts for 27-29 Oct.** Check each against the originality list above before it goes out, and flag any that are just a re-post of someone else's clip.
- **Wording:**
  - neutral, with none of the banned public words (list in the project workspace);
  - no person in the family named;
  - nothing about family holdings.

## Sources
- about.fb.com (read in full)
- buffer.com (read in full)
- facebook.com (Meta original content help page; returned 400 from this box, snippet only, not checked)


> 27 Oct 2026 note: Meta's Original Content Guidelines (business/help/262834734651607, read) list 'adding subtitle transcripts' and 'only an on-screen text caption' as minor editorialization when the clip or image is third-party (e.g. archive scans): the enhancement has to be new information, ideally a presenter on screen. Diagnosis steps: facebook-page-reach-limited-originality-triage.md.