It was a chance too good for Meta to disregard: On January 19, TikTok, considered one of its greatest social media rivals, was set to go darkish throughout america when a new nationwide safety regulation went into impact. Within the days and weeks earlier than the ban, as hundreds of thousands of Individuals had been scrambling to discover a appropriate various to TikTok, Meta discovered methods to advertise Instagram and Fb as the reply. The tech big made a flurry of design tweaks, rolled out new options, and ran commercials that each one positioned its platforms—and particularly its video product, Reels—as direct rivals to TikTok.
Instagram has scaled again its in-app buying initiatives in recent times, however on Friday, Meta confirmed off a brand new function that seems to be straight ripped from TikTok Store, TikTok’s extensively profitable e-commerce platform. In a promotional video, two buying creators working for Meta defined how influencers can now “extra prominently show” merchandise they’re advertising and marketing in Reels. As a substitute 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 had been simply as pointed. Proper earlier than TikTok stopped working for roughly 14 hours on Saturday, some individuals reported that among the many final issues they noticed on the platform had been sponsored posts for Instagram. “Unsurprisingly, as TikTok goes down tonight, Meta is flooding my FYP with adverts for Instagram,” one individual mentioned in a Bluesky submit, referring to TikTok’s AI-powered For You Web page feed. “In my final hour of TikTok I noticed adverts for instagram,” one other individual mentioned on Threads.
TikTok’s Advert Library, a transparency instrument that permits anybody to go looking what paid campaigns are working on the platform, reveals that Meta ran dozens of sponsored movies about Instagram and Reels in January that had been collectively considered by hundreds of thousands of customers. However the instrument solely contains knowledge from a choose variety of international locations—principally in Europe—and doesn’t cowl what adverts TikTok customers might have seen in america. Meta didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.
On Fb, a lot of individuals reported seeing a distinct 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 exhibiting your TikTok profile hyperlink and follower rely 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 individual.
The immediate seems to be linked to a function Meta launched final month that permits customers to show their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and follower counts on Fb. Nevertheless, the banner individuals reported seeing in current days solely talked about TikTok by identify. The function makes it simpler for creators’ followers on different platforms to seek out and observe them on Fb.