Instagram poaching TikTok stars

Photo Credit: Meta

Instagram is reportedly taking advantage of TikTok’s absence from app stores by offering creators large bonuses for posting exclusively to Reels.

With TikTok’s continued absence from both Apple and Google’s app stores, Instagram is using the opportunity to secure exclusivity deals with some of the platform’s biggest creators. According to a report from The Information, Instagram is offering creators cash bonuses of between $10,000 to $50,000 a month to post exclusively to Reels before publishing their short-form videos to other platforms such as TikTok.

Meta spokesperson Paige Cohen confirmed to The Verge that the company has launched a “Breakthrough Bonus program” that allows TikTok creators to earn up to $5,000 over three months for posting Reels to Facebook and Instagram. “Over the coming months, we’ll also offer some TikTok creators content deals to help grow their communities on Instagram and Facebook,” said Cohen.

This isn’t the first time Meta has boosted its payouts for creators to compete with TikTok, but these boosts haven’t lasted in the past. Instagram launched a Reels bonus program in 2021. But creators reported the platform slashing their payments by 2022, until the program was shuttered entirely in 2023.

Within the past week, since TikTok went dark in the US to comply with the federal law that came into effect on January 19, Instagram has announced a plethora of updates that appear to cater to TikTok creators. In addition to changing the format of profile grids from squares to rectangles, Instagram also extended the maximum length of Reels to three minutes.

Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, also announced the company is working on a new video editing app to compete with TikTok’s sister app, CapCut, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance.

But will this be enough to entice TikTok creators? While it’s been a busy week for TikTok, it’s been a similarly busy week for Meta, which reversed its policy on fact-checking, as well as other changes seemingly designed to appease the new administration. Though TikTok remains unavailable on the app stores, President Donald Trump signed an executive order to delay its ban just a day after the ban went into effect, following his inauguration.