ByteDance Ltd.’s TikTok app is shown on the App Store on a smartphone in an organized photo shoot in Arlington, Virginia.
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images
TikTok is fully aware that Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is redesigning his Facebook and Instagram apps to look more like his own popular short video service. But TikTok has no interest in imitating Facebook.
“Facebook is a social platform,” Blake Chandlee, president of global business solutions at TikTok, said in an interview with CNBC on Thursday. “They’ve built all their algorithms based on the social graph. That’s their core competency. Ours is not.”
Chandlee, who spent 12 years on Facebook before joining TikTok in 2019, said her former employer would likely have problems if she tries to copy TikTok and end up offering a inferior experience to users and brands.
Facebook launched Instagram Reels in 2020 as its first real foray into the short format video market. Last year, it brought the service to its main Facebook app.
“We’re an entertainment platform,” Chandlee said. “The difference is significant. It’s a huge difference.”
Facebook chief of staff Tom Alison told The Verge this week that he sees TikTok stealing more and more share of the world’s largest social network. Facebook plans to change its main feed to look more like TikTok by recommending more content regardless of whether it’s shared by friends.
“I think what we probably didn’t accept or see at all is how social this format could be,” Alison told The Verge.
Facebook’s recent performance backs it up. Meta’s share price has fallen 52% this year, with a lower yield on the Nasdaq, which has fallen 32%. In April, the company said second-quarter revenue could be down from the previous year for the first time.
Earlier this year, Zuckerberg acknowledged the growing competitive pressure on TikTok and said, “That’s why our focus on Reels is so important in the long run.”
TikTok is owned by ByteDance of China, which is privately owned.
Chandlee said the story is not on Zuckerberg’s side and compares his current problem to the challenge Google faced when trying to deal with Facebook with its own game.
“You remember when Google was creating Google+,” Chandlee said. On Facebook, “We had war rooms at the time. It was a big problem. Everyone was worried about it,” he said.
But no matter how much Google invested in its social media efforts, it couldn’t compete with Facebook, which had become the default place to connect with friends and share photos and updates.
“It became clear that the value of Google was search and Facebook was very good on social media,” Chandlee said.
“I see the same thing now,” he added. “We are very good at what we do. We bring to light these cultural trends and this unique experience that people have at TikTok. They just won’t have it on Facebook unless Facebook is completely away from its social values, which I just don’t think he will. “
Facebook did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Chandlee added that he has a deep respect for Zuckerberg and considers Facebook and Google to be strong competition. However, he noted that TikTok has a wide variety of competitors around the world, including e-commerce and live streaming companies.
Chandlee said he has not seen a slowdown in advertising spending on TikTok, despite reports from companies like Snap, which told investors that advertising revenue is being hit by inflation and the threat of recession. Snap shares have lost nearly three-quarters of their value this year.
“I’ve heard that there’s going to be a slowdown in the ad market, between 2% and 6%, but we haven’t seen that,” Chandlee said. “We’re not seeing the headwinds that some others are seeing.”
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