On Wednesday afternoon, executives at Meta held a Q&A session with some of its employees about the state of American politics.
Alex Schultz, the chief marketing officer, addressed questions about Meta’s embrace of the incoming Trump administration and what he said was the company’s precarious standing overseas, according to two attendees. He also said that Meta was paying close attention to the fate of one of its greatest competitors: TikTok.
Depending on what happened to TikTok, which is owned by the Chinese company ByteDance and faces a ban in the United States, Meta needed to prepare for what could be a seismic shift in how Americans used social media, Mr. Schultz said. Meta had the potential to benefit, but he said the company needed to be ready.
Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Threads, has a particular interest in the outcome. The Silicon Valley giant — along with Google’s YouTube and other social media apps — may stand to benefit if a law banning TikTok from the United States takes effect on Sunday, leaving TikTok’s 170 million monthly U.S. users high and dry. On Friday, the Supreme Court upheld the federal law in question.
In private, Meta has dispatched teams to prepare for scooping 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 possibly further tweaking Instagram to make certain features more familiar to heavy users of TikTok, 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 has online shopping and robust user engagement.”
YouTube has also made changes to its app — particularly YouTube Shorts, which provides users with quick vertical videos — to appeal to TikTok creators. In October, YouTube expanded the maximum length of YouTube Shorts videos to three minutes, up from one, to capture creators accustomed to TikTok, where videos can stretch up to 10 minutes. This week, YouTube invited some creators who use its app and TikTok to a YouTube Shopping “boot camp” program to get up and running on the platform.
In a statement, a Meta spokesman said the company was “following the news.” He added, “Like other apps and services in this highly-competitive space, we’re of course assessing what various potential scenarios could mean for our products.”
A YouTube spokeswoman said the company regularly runs boot camps to inform creators about product features and formats.
For years, Meta and Google have prepared for the possibility of a TikTok ban in the United States. Their planning kicked into high gear in April, when President Biden signed a bill into law 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, with the case eventually landing in the Supreme Court.
In public, Meta and Google have remained relatively quiet on what may happen if TikTok is banished from the United States, but they have been active behind the scenes, said three people familiar with the companies’ plans.
At the Meta meeting on Wednesday led by Mr. Schultz, executives discussed how to divvy up internal resources — including workers and financial support — partly to deal with a potential influx of TikTok users, the two employees familiar with the call said. Some teams have discussed how to 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 gain “incrementally” more revenue and time spent on their apps by users if TikTok is banned, John Blackledge, an analyst at the investment firm TD Cowen, said in an interview. But Instagram has the edge, he said.
U.S. internet users said they would most likely watch Instagram Reels after TikTok’s ban, according to TD Cowen’s recent survey of 2,500 consumers. Reels would attract 29 percent of respondents, while 23 percent said they would spend more time on YouTube Shorts, and 15 percent would look for a new app, according to the survey.
Among advertisers, Instagram’s advantage appeared even starker, with 56 percent of ad buyers telling TD Cowen in a survey last quarter that their clients most wanted to advertise on Reels this year. Another 24 percent prioritized YouTube Shorts, while 20 percent preferred TikTok.
Meta and Google are not the only companies trying to capitalize on TikTok’s potential misfortune. On Saturday, Substack, the newsletter start-up, announced a $25,000 “TikTok Liberation Prize,” which will be awarded to the creator whose video convinces the most TikTokers to post about joining Substack, no matter what happens to TikTok.
Clapper, a short-video app similar to TikTok, this week offered some creators $200 for each video they make that advertises its site as a destination for TikTok refugees. The company said the rate varied based on a creator’s content and following. And Xiaohongshu, a Chinese TikTok-like app known colloquially as “RedNote” in English, has also skyrocketed to the top of the App Store.
Still, which company may take over TikTok’s territory is far from settled. Sammi Scotto, who makes content for TikTok and helps other creators join social media platforms, said she was not putting all her eggs in one basket.
“I’ll be focused on Instagram, YouTube and LinkedIn,” she said, “but keeping my eye on the others.”
