Rival social platforms are seizing on TikTok’s legal and technical troubles, rolling out new incentives to lure creators and advertisers.
As TikTok faces mounting uncertainty, competitors are doubling down with fresh monetization tools, expanded ad offerings, and aggressive outreach—turning disruption into an opportunity to reshape short-form video.
“It will be hard for [TikTok] to shake off its association with the Trump administration,” said Jasmine Enberg, principal analyst at Emarketer. “If Trump is able to broker a deal with ByteDance, he’s not likely to let consumers forget that he saved TikTok. It’s also unclear what the app would look like post-deal, and that could have implications for its popularity among users and advertisers.”
Meta, one of TikTok’s biggest competitors, has been aggressive in revamping its video strategy even before the threats of a TikTok ban were sharply felt. During Meta’s Q3 earnings call last year, its chief financial officer Susan Li highlighted a strategic push to revamp Facebook’s video player, integrating a full-screen format to better unify Reels within the platform’s broader video ecosystem.
That effort appears to be driving engagement. Market intelligence firm Sensor Tower found that time spent on Facebook Reels in the U.S. jumped 14% between January and September 2024, translating to millions of additional hours of engagement as Meta’s unification strategy took effect.
As users face technical issues while trying to download TikTok, here’s how its rivals are making strides to capture the attention of the app’s 170 million users, creators, and advertisers.
Instagram and Facebook: paying creators, testing performance, refining discoverability
If you were caught off guard by Instagram’s shift from its iconic square grid to a vertical, rectangular format, it’s part of Meta’s broader push to attract TikTok creators, according to the company.
“We started with the tall grid because most photos and videos uploaded to Instagram today are vertical, and rectangles do a better job showcasing them,” Instagram head Adam Mosseri explained in a post four days ago.
Meta has extended Instagram Reels to three minutes—up from 90 seconds—and is refining its ranking systems to boost discoverability for creators new to Instagram and Facebook, a key advantage TikTok once held.
