Battle for bloggers: Instagram attracts authors from the TikTok social network with cash bonuses

Previously, Meta had already increased payments to video creators to compete with TikTok, but this did not last long. In 2021, Instagram launched a bonus program for Reels, and in 2022, messages from creators about reduced payments began to arrive, after which the program was completely closed in 2023.

What you should know

The announcement of an increase in Instagram bonuses for bloggers came at a difficult time for TikTok. After a brief outage due to the ban that went into effect, TikTok resumed operations in the US last Sunday, and one of the first documents signed by President Donald Trump after taking office was an executive order postponing the ban on TikTok in the US for 75 days.

Last week, Instagram announced a number of updates, including changing the format of profile grids from squares to rectangles, as well as increasing the maximum length of videos in Reels to three minutes. Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri also announced a video editing app called Edits, a competitor to ByteDance’s CapCut app, which, along with TikTok, was removed from the U.S. sections of the Apple App Store and Google Play after the new law took effect.

All of this may not be enough to attract TikTok creators, some of whom have been unhappy with Meta’s loosening of moderation and policy changes, writes The Verge.