It was a possibility too good for Meta to disregard: On January 19, TikTok, one in every of its greatest social media rivals, was set to go darkish throughout the US when a brand new nationwide safety regulation went into impact. Within the days and weeks earlier than the ban, as hundreds of thousands of Individuals have been scrambling to discover a appropriate various to TikTok, Meta discovered methods to advertise Instagram and Fb as the reply. The tech large made a flurry of design tweaks, rolled out new options, and ran ads that each one positioned its platforms—and particularly its video product, Reels—as direct rivals to TikTok.
Instagram has scaled back its in-app procuring initiatives lately, however on Friday, Meta confirmed off a brand new characteristic that seems to be immediately ripped from TikTok Store, TikTok’s broadly profitable e-commerce platform. In a promotional video, two procuring creators working for Meta defined how influencers can now “extra prominently show” merchandise they’re advertising and marketing in Reels. As an alternative of placing an Amazon or Walmart hyperlink within the feedback, they will add a banner directing viewers to click on on the merchandise on the backside of their movies—identical to the way it works on TikTok Store.
A few of Meta’s different efforts have been simply as pointed. Proper earlier than TikTok stopped working for roughly 14 hours on Saturday, some folks reported that among the many final issues they noticed on the platform have been sponsored posts for Instagram. “Unsurprisingly, as TikTok goes down tonight, Meta is flooding my FYP with advertisements for Instagram,” one particular person mentioned in a Bluesky put up, referring to TikTok’s AI-powered For You Web page feed. “In my final hour of TikTok I noticed advertisements for instagram,” one other particular person mentioned on Threads.
TikTok’s Advert Library, a transparency instrument that enables anybody to look what paid campaigns are working on the platform, reveals that Meta ran dozens of sponsored movies about Instagram and Reels in January that have been collectively considered by hundreds of thousands of customers. However the instrument solely consists of knowledge from a choose variety of international locations—principally in Europe—and doesn’t cowl what advertisements TikTok customers might have seen in the US. Meta didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
On Fb, plenty of folks reported seeing a unique promotion seem on their information feeds final week, encouraging them to hyperlink their TikTok accounts to their Fb pages. “Construct your social presence throughout apps by displaying your TikTok profile hyperlink and follower depend in your Fb Web page,” one model of the message learn.
Given the timing, “this feels a bit passive aggressive,” one consumer wrote on X together with a screenshot of the banner. “Fb is trolling customers by suggesting we add our TikTok accounts to our Fb pages,” joked one other particular person.
The immediate seems to be related to a feature Meta launched final month that enables customers to show their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and follower counts on Fb. Nonetheless, the banner folks reported seeing in latest days solely talked about TikTok by title. The characteristic makes it simpler for creators’ followers on different platforms to seek out and observe them on Fb.