Instagram and YouTube are preparing to benefit from a TikTok ban
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On Wednesday afternoon, Meta executives held a question-and-answer session with some of their employees about the state of American politics.
According to two participants, Alex Schultz, the chief marketing officer, addressed questions about Meta's advocacy for the new Trump administration and what he said was the company's precarious situation abroad. He also said that Meta is closely monitoring the fate of one of its biggest competitors: TikTok.
Depending on what happened with TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and banned in the United States, Meta must prepare for a potentially profound change in the way Americans use social media, Mr. Schultz said. Meta had the potential to capitalize, but he said the company had to be ready.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has a particular interest in the outcome. The Silicon Valley giant could benefit – along with Google's YouTube and other social media apps – if a law banning TikTok from the United States goes into effect on Sunday, leaving TikTok's 170 million monthly U.S. users left behind . On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the federal law in question.
In private, Meta has dispatched teams to prepare to round up as many so-called TikTok refugees as possible, three people familiar with the plans said. That includes doing more to court TikTok's popular influencers and potentially further tweaking Instagram to make certain features more familiar to TikTok's heavy users, they said. Instagram offers Reels, a short-form video product that competes with TikTok.
“Instagram is a natural home” for TikTok creators and users, said Richard Kramer, a financial analyst at Arete Research. “Like TikTok, the app offers online shopping and strong user engagement.”
YouTube has also made changes to its app — particularly YouTube Shorts, which offers users quick vertical videos — to appeal to TikTok creators. In October, YouTube increased the maximum length of YouTube Shorts videos from one to three minutes to attract creators accustomed to TikTok, where videos can be up to 10 minutes long. This week, YouTube invited some creators who use its app and TikTok to a YouTube Shopping “boot camp” program to get the platform up and running.
In a statement, a Meta spokesperson said the company was “following the news.” He added: “Like other apps and services in this highly competitive space, we are of course evaluating what various potential scenarios could mean for our products.”
A YouTube spokeswoman said the company regularly hosts boot camps to educate creators on product features and formats.
Meta and Google have been preparing for the possibility of a TikTok ban in the US for years. Their planning kicked into high gear in April when President Biden signed a bill that would force ByteDance to sell TikTok to non-Chinese owners or face a ban in the United States. TikTok sued the federal government to challenge the law, and the case eventually ended up in the Supreme Court.
Publicly, Meta and Google have said relatively little about what might happen if TikTok is banned from the United States, but they have been active behind the scenes, said three people familiar with the companies' plans.
At Wednesday's meta meeting led by Mr. Schultz, executives discussed how to allocate internal resources – including manpower and financial support – in part to handle a possible influx of TikTok users, the two people familiar with the call said. Some teams have discussed how they could help TikTok users transition to Instagram, including by potentially bringing some of their TikTok videos to Instagram, the people said.
Instagram and YouTube would both see “incremental” increases in revenue and time users spend on their apps if TikTok is banned, John Blackledge, an analyst at investment firm TD Cowen, said in an interview. But Instagram is ahead, he said.
According to a recent TD Cowen survey of 2,500 consumers, US internet users said they would most likely watch Instagram Reels after TikTok was banned. According to the survey, 29 percent of respondents would gravitate toward Reels, while 23 percent said they would spend more time on YouTube Shorts and 15 percent would look for a new app.
Among advertisers, Instagram's advantage appeared to be even greater: 56 percent of ad buyers told TD Cowen in a survey last quarter that their customers most wanted to advertise on Reels this year. Another 24 percent prioritized YouTube Shorts, while 20 percent preferred TikTok.
Meta and Google aren't the only companies trying to capitalize on TikTok's potential misfortune. On Saturday, Substack, the newsletter startup, announced a $25,000 “TikTok Liberation Prize” that will be awarded to the creator whose video convinces the most TikTokers to post about joining Substack, no matter what happened with TikTok.
Clapper, a TikTok-like short-video app, this week offered some YouTubers $200 for each video they created that promotes its site as a destination for TikTok refugees. The company said the rate varies depending on a creator's content and following. And Xiaohongshu, a Chinese TikTok-like app known colloquially in English as “RedNote,” has also skyrocketed to the top of the App Store.
However, it is far from clear which company could take over TikTok's territory. Sammi Scotto, who creates content for TikTok and helps other creators join social media platforms, said she doesn't put all her eggs in one basket.
“I’ll focus on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn,” she said, “but keep an eye on the others.”
