For a year I told people trial reels were an Instagram thing. Test on Instagram strangers, release the winner, then push it to Facebook as a normal post. That is the system, and it works. You just have more options now.
Here is the part where I make fun of myself. Back in August, “trial reels on Facebook” showed up in my Search Console as something people were typing into Google. I read data for a living, so I wrote a post answering it. The answer was no. I did not dig deeper with Meta, I did not go looking in anyone else’s account, and I did not ask the AI sitting in my own DMs. Silly me. The searchers were ahead of me, which is the whole reason you read your Search Console: the questions people ask are the tip-off, and this time I took the tip-off and answered it wrong.
Facebook has trial reels now. Meta has been rolling them out for about a year without much noise, and the reason so few people know is that the toggle is invisible on most accounts, and missing from plenty of the rest. The only account I have seen it on is a friend’s. Not one of mine has it. This post covers what the feature does, why you probably cannot see it, what you can and cannot do about that, and the real question it raises: do you now run trials on both platforms, or pick one?
How I found out, in twelve screenshots
A photographer friend messaged me asking if trial reels were gone. He could not find them on Instagram anymore. He could find them on Facebook, on a personal profile, not a business page. I had never seen that in my life, and I run a lot of accounts. Then we asked Meta AI, which turned out to be in the chat, and kept asking until it made sense. Read them in order, the way the conversation happened. Arrows or swipe.
1 of 12. He asks if trial reels are gone. He cannot find them on Instagram, only on Facebook. I have never seen that.
2 of 12. The proof: the Facebook share sheet with a Trial toggle. Personal profile, not a business page.
3 of 12. He always had trials on Instagram and lost them. We ask Meta AI, which is apparently in the chat.
4 of 12. Meta AI: trial reels rolled out on Facebook about a year ago, shown to non-followers first.
5 of 12. Meta AI: a trial only runs on the platform you post it on. The data stays separate, even with cross-posting on.
6 of 12. He asks why his Instagram lost them. Meta AI: rollout in waves, professional account, the toggle is in the composer.
7 of 12. He has it on his portrait page. I ask about my personal Facebook, where I only see A/B testing.
8 of 12. Meta AI: A/B testing is the older feature for thumbnails and captions. Trials are separate and tied to professional mode.
9 of 12. Meta AI: staged rollout since late 2024, mobile only, in the reel composer above the caption. Pro mode is step one, no guarantee.
10 of 12. I ask it to be clear. Facebook: pro mode on a profile, or a Page. Instagram: a professional account, creator or business, either works.
11 of 12. I point out I run about fifteen business pages and none of them have it. Meta AI: “Lmao yeah that’s brutal.”
12 of 12. The advice: keep posting reels consistently, active pages get flipped on first. “The irony is wild.” Today is a weird day.
The second screenshot is the one that matters: the Facebook share sheet with a Trial toggle, "Share to non-followers first. Later, you can choose to share with everyone." Same wording as Instagram, on a Facebook personal profile that has never been a business page.
Meta AI's answers come with the usual caveat, it is an AI and Meta labels it as sometimes wrong, but five things in there matched what we could see with our own eyes, so they go in the post:
- Trials are siloed by platform. An Instagram trial tests with Instagram non-followers, a Facebook trial with Facebook non-followers, and the two do not cross-share during the trial even with cross-posting on. The data stays separate, on purpose, so you can see which platform likes the content. That one line is the reason the rest of this post exists.
- The thing most Facebook accounts have is A/B testing, and it is a different feature. A/B tests thumbnails and captions on a reel after you post it. Trials test the whole reel on strangers before your followers see it. If the only option you can find says "Test different thumbnails," that is A/B, and you do not have trials yet.
- The trial toggle lives in the reel composer, mobile only. Start a new reel, add the clip, and look for "Trial" above the caption before you hit Post. It is not in settings, and it does not appear on old drafts.
- Professional mode is step one, and it is still no guarantee. Meta has been staging this since late 2024, older creator accounts and US, Canada, and UK accounts first, and there is no switch to force it. My friend has it on his professional-mode profile. I checked all nineteen pages I run and not one of them has it, which Meta AI found funnier than I did.
- On Instagram, creator or business both qualify. Trials need a professional account there, and either type works. A personal Instagram account cannot get them at all. On Facebook, Pages were first to get it, and the rollout leans toward pages that post reels regularly, so the one thing you can do while you wait is keep posting reels on the page you want flipped on.
What a Facebook trial reel is
The same idea as Instagram's. You post a reel, switch on trial, and Facebook shows it to people who do not follow you. Your friends and followers do not see it. You get a read from strangers on whether the idea stops a scroll, and if it does, you release it to everyone.
If you are new to trials altogether, how trial reels work is the full explainer, and trial reels vs regular reels covers when to use which. Everything there applies on Facebook too.
First: not everyone has it, and that includes me
This is a rollout, and a slow one. Meta turns the feature on account by account, and a year in it is still missing from a lot of them. Two accounts that look identical can differ: one has the toggle, the other does not. After that conversation I went and checked every page I run. All nineteen of them, personal and business. Not one has the option. So if you do not have it, you are not alone.
So if you go looking and it is not there, that may be the whole story. Nothing to fix, just waiting. One thing worth doing while you wait: the Facebook and Instagram rollouts are separate, so if you never got trials on Instagram, check Facebook. Some accounts get one before the other, and a Facebook trial is better than no trial.
Second: the account type
This is the whole reason the feature feels secret. Facebook only shows trial reels on two kinds of accounts:
- A personal profile with professional mode turned on. Professional mode adds a follow button, a professional dashboard, and the creator tools. Trials sit with the creator tools.
- A business page. Pages have the tools by default.
A plain personal profile, the kind most people run their business from without thinking about it, never gets the toggle. So people update the app, hunt through the reel settings, decide the rumor was wrong, and move on. The feature is there. Their account is not the kind that sees it.
How to turn it on
If you post from a business page, you are set. Create a reel from the page and look for the trial option before you share.
If you post from your personal profile:
- Open your profile and go to settings.
- Find Professional mode and turn it on. It takes about a minute. Your friends stay your friends, and your private posts stay private. What changes is that people can follow you, and you get the professional dashboard.
- Create a reel as usual, on your phone. Before sharing, look for the Trial toggle above the caption box and switch it on. If what you see instead is "Test different thumbnails," that is A/B testing, a different feature, and trials have not reached your account yet.
- Share. The reel goes to non-followers only. Check the professional dashboard for the results.
This is what it looks like when you have it. Facebook's Reel Settings screen, with Trial sitting between Add to playlist and Add product: "Share to non-followers first. Later, you can choose to share with everyone." One toggle. If your screen has Location, Share to groups, Tag people, and Add product but no Trial row, the rollout has not reached that account.
If you have professional mode on and still do not see it, you are in the same spot I am. Give it time. Meta rolls features out in waves, and this one has been slow. The eligibility checklist for trials covers the other reasons a trial option goes missing, and most of them apply to Facebook as well.
What changes in the testing system
Until now the system was: test on Instagram, release what wins, distribute everywhere. Facebook was a distribution channel, never a test channel. That meant every Facebook post went to your whole audience blind.
Now Facebook is a test channel too. Three things follow from that.
Test on both audiences, separately. Facebook's audience skews older than Instagram's and it decides differently. A hook that wins on Instagram can die on Facebook, and a family moment that does nothing on Instagram can carry a Facebook page for a month. One of my clients built a Facebook page from nothing to 6,200 followers in 70 days on a reel that was a family bit, not a listing. That case study is here. A Facebook trial finds that reel on purpose instead of by luck.
Judge each platform on its own trial data. A cross-posted Instagram trial is still an ordinary Facebook post, visible to everyone, and its Facebook views tell you nothing about the test. That was true before and it is still true. If you want a Facebook read, run a Facebook trial, from Facebook. I rewrote the post on cross-posting trials the day I confirmed the feature, and the warning in it stands.
Local businesses get the most out of this. Roofers, realtors, contractors, anyone selling to homeowners in a specific town. Your buyers are in local Facebook groups and recommendation threads, and until now you could only guess what they would stop for. A roofing client of mine runs the trial reels framework in-house and saw 10x on Facebook in three months while still testing on Instagram alone. The case study. Testing on Facebook strangers directly is the next lever for accounts like that.
The big question: do you trial on both, or pick one?
Now that trials exist on two platforms, the question I am getting is whether you hand-post every trial to Instagram and Facebook, or keep trials on one. The answer depends on your business, and there are three honest versions of it.
Your audience lives on Facebook: make the switch. Local groups, recommendation threads, an older buyer, a town-based service. If that is where the people who hire you spend their time, run your trials on Facebook and stop treating Instagram as the test bed by default. Test where the buyers are.
Your audience lives on Instagram: stay there. Coaches, creators, anyone selling to a younger or national audience. Instagram trials are mature, the signals are well understood, and your buyers are already in the results. Nothing about the Facebook feature changes that.
You have the manpower: do both. Each platform gets its own trial, its own read, and its own winner. When the same version wins on both, that is a strong piece of content and it goes everywhere. When different versions win, that is information about two audiences, and both go out where they earned it. What you do not do is treat the Facebook trial as a formality or assume the Instagram winner will win there. The point of a test is that you do not know yet.
The manpower part is smaller than it sounds. The Edits app shares straight to Instagram and Facebook, with no downloads and no re-uploading. You are already hand-posting the trial to Instagram. Sharing the same reel to Facebook as its own trial is one more tap in the same flow. If the account has the toggle, both trials are running before you have put the phone down.
The short version
Facebook has trial reels, for some accounts. You need professional mode or a business page to see the toggle, and the rollout may not have reached you yet. Check Facebook if Instagram never gave you trials. Trial on whichever platform your buyers live on, or both if you have the hands, and Edits makes both a single flow. Judge each platform on its own numbers, and stop assuming what wins on Instagram wins everywhere. For businesses whose buyers live on Facebook, this is the most useful thing Meta has shipped in a while.
Want the testing system built for your accounts?
Book a strategy call and bring both accounts. I will show you where the toggle is, what to test first on each platform, and how to read the two sets of numbers without mixing them.
No pitch. A straight read on your content.
Frequently asked questions
Does Facebook have trial reels?
Yes. Meta has been rolling them out on Facebook for about a year. They work the way Instagram's do: the reel goes to non-followers only, and you release it to everyone if it performs.
Why can't I find the trial toggle on Facebook?
Two reasons. It only appears on a personal profile with professional mode turned on, or on a business page, so a plain personal profile never gets it. And the rollout is uneven: plenty of eligible accounts do not have it yet. I checked all nineteen pages I run and none do, so you are not alone. Turn on professional mode, then check back over time.
I don't have trial reels on Instagram. Should I check Facebook?
Yes. The two rollouts are separate. Some accounts get Facebook trials before Instagram trials, and a trial on one platform beats no trial at all.
Should I run trials on Instagram, Facebook, or both?
It depends on where your buyers are. Facebook-heavy audience, move your trials there. Instagram-heavy, stay. If you have the hands, do both and read each on its own. The Edits app shares to both with no downloads, so the extra work is one more tap.
Does turning on professional mode change my personal profile?
Your friends stay your friends and your private posts stay private. It adds a follow button, a professional dashboard, and the creator tools, trials included.
Can I share an Instagram trial reel to Facebook as a trial?
No. A cross-posted Instagram trial arrives on Facebook as an ordinary reel that everyone sees. To run a Facebook trial, create it on Facebook with the trial toggle on.
Should I test the same reel on both platforms?
Yes, separately. Facebook's audience is older and decides differently. Run the trial on each, read each platform's own numbers, and release the winner on each. When the same version wins on both, push it everywhere.
Who benefits most from Facebook trial reels?
Local and service businesses whose buyers spend time in Facebook groups and recommendation threads: roofers, realtors, contractors, home services. They can now test on that audience before the whole page sees the post.
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