This is an opportunity too good for Meta to ignore: On January 19, TikTok, one of them biggest rival in social mediais set to go dark across the United States on a new national security law took effect. In the days and weeks leading up to the ban, as millions of Americans scrambled to find a suitable alternative to TikTok, Meta found ways to promote Instagram and Facebook as the answer. The tech giant has made design changes, rolled out new features, and run advertisements that all position its platforms—and especially its video product, Reels—as direct competitors to TikTok.
Instagram has it shrink back its in-app shopping initiatives in recent years, but on Friday, Meta unveiled a new feature that appears to have been ripped directly from TikTok ShopTikTok's widely successful ecommerce platform. In a promotional videotwo shopping creators working for Meta explained how influencers can now “more prominently feature” the products they sell on Reels. Instead of putting a link to Amazon or Walmart in the comments, they can add a banner that directs viewers to click on the item below their videos—just like how it works in the TikTok Shop.
Some of Meta's other efforts are as pointed out. TikTok is new stop working for about 14 hours on Saturday, some people reported that among the last things they saw on the platform were sponsored posts for Instagram. “Unsurprisingly, as TikTok goes down tonight, Meta is flooding my FYP with ads for Instagram,” one person said in a post on Bluesky, referring to TikTok's AI-powered For You feed. “In my last hour of TikTok I saw ads for instagram,” said another person on Threads.
TikTok's Ad Library, a transparency tool that allows anyone to search what paid campaigns are running on the platform, shows that Meta ran dozens of sponsored videos about Instagram and Reels in January that were collectively viewed by millions of users. But the tool includes data from only a select number of countries—mostly in Europe—and does not cover what ads TikTok users in the United States may have seen. Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Facebook, several people reported seeing a different promotion appear in their news feeds last week, encouraging them to link their TikTok accounts to their Facebook pages. “Build your social presence on apps by displaying your TikTok profile link and follower count on your Facebook Page,” one version of the message read.
Because of the timing, “this feels passive aggressive,” one user wrote on X along with a screenshot of the banner. “Facebook is trolling users by suggesting we add our TikTok accounts to our Facebook pages,” another person joked.
The prompt appears to be connected to a feature Meta launched last month allowing users to display their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and number of followers on Facebook. However, the banner that people have reportedly seen in recent days only mentions TikTok's name. The feature makes it easier for followers of creators on other platforms to find and follow them on Facebook.
