It was an opportunity that was too good for Meta to ignore: On January 19, TikTok, one of its biggest social media rivals, would disappear into thin air in the United States when a new national security law went into effect. In the days and weeks before the ban, when millions of Americans were looking for a suitable alternative to TikTok, Meta found ways to promote Instagram and Facebook in response. The tech giant made a slew of design tweaks, introduced new features and ran ads that positioned all platforms (and especially its video product Reels) as direct competitors to TikTok.
Instagram has been scaling back its in-app shopping initiatives in recent years, but on Friday Meta showed off a new feature that appears to be taken directly from TikTok Shop, TikTok's widely successful e-commerce platform. In a promotional video, two store creators working for Meta explained how influencers can now “more prominently display” the products they market in Reels. Instead of posting an Amazon or Walmart link in the comments, they can add a banner that prompts viewers to click the item at the bottom of their videos, just like it works on TikTok Shop.
Some of Meta's other efforts were just as purposeful. Just before TikTok stopped operating for about 14 hours on Saturday, some people reported that one of 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 Bluesky post, referring to TikTok's AI-powered For You Page 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 find out which paid campaigns are running on the platform, shows that Meta ran dozens of sponsored videos across Instagram and Reels in January that were collectively viewed by millions of users. But the tool only includes data from a select few countries — mainly in Europe — and doesn't address what ads TikTok users may have seen in the United States. Meta did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On Facebook, a number of people reported seeing another promotion pop up on their news feeds last week, encouraging them to link their TikTok accounts to their Facebook pages. “Build your social presence in apps by showing your TikTok profile link and number of followers on your Facebook page,” one version of the post read.
Given the timing, “this feels a bit passive-aggressive,” one user on X wrote 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 related to a feature Meta launched last month that allows users to display their YouTube, TikTok and Instagram handles and follower counts on Facebook. However, the banner that people reported in recent days only mentioned TikTok by name. This feature makes it easier for followers of creators on other platforms to find and follow them on Facebook.
