It was too good an opportunity for Meta to ignore: On January 19, TikTok, one of its biggest social media rivals, was on the verge of disappearing across the United States when a new national security law went into effect. In the days and weeks leading up to the ban, as millions of Americans struggled to find a suitable alternative to TikTok, Meta found ways to promote Instagram and Facebook as the answer. The tech giant made a number of design adjustments, implemented new features, and ran ads that positioned its platforms, and especially its video product, Reels, as direct competitors to TikTok.
Instagram has reduced its in-app purchasing initiatives in recent years, but on Friday, Meta showed off a new feature that appears to have been pulled directly from TikTok Shop, TikTok’s successful e-commerce platform. in a promotional videoTwo shoppable creators who work for Meta explained how influencers can now “more prominently display” the products they market on Reels. Instead of putting an Amazon or Walmart link in the comments, they can add a banner that tells viewers to click on the item at the bottom of their videos, just like how it works on TikTok Shop.
Some of Meta’s other efforts were equally accurate. Just before TikTok went down for about 14 hours on Saturday, some people reported that among the last things they saw on the platform were sponsored posts for Instagram. “As expected, as TikTok drops 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. “In my last hour of TikTok I saw Instagram ads,” said another person on Threads.
TikTok’s Ad Library, a transparency tool that allows anyone to look up what paid campaigns are running on the platform, shows that Meta ran dozens of sponsored videos on Instagram and Reels in January that were collectively viewed by millions of users. But the tool only includes data from a select number of countries, primarily in Europe, and does not cover what ads TikTok users may have seen in the United States. 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 across apps by displaying your TikTok profile link and follower count on your Facebook page,” one version of the message read.
Given the timing, “this feels a little 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 message appears to be connected to a feature Meta launched last month and allows users to display their YouTube, TikTok, and Instagram handles and follower counts on Facebook. However, the banner that people reported seeing in recent days only mentioned TikTok by name. The feature makes it easier for creators’ followers on other platforms to find and follow them on Facebook.