• LTK is relaunching its app on Thursday to add new social features and expand beyond shopping.
• Other social-commerce apps like Flip have similarly moved into general entertainment.
• The companies are stepping up efforts to blend entertainment and shopping as they chase users.

For social-shopping apps, commerce alone isn't cutting it.

LTK, a platform that lets users buy products from creator videos and posts, is relaunching its app on Thursday to encourage more everyday content from its users.

"We're moving from being a shopping app to really being a lifestyle app," Amber Venz Box, cofounder of LTK, told Business Insider.

LTK's new feed lets users discover videos by geography and topic, such as fashion, parenting, cooking, and travel. It still wants creators to tag items in videos (that's how the company and its affiliate partners make money), but it hopes they'll vlog about other parts of their lives without any intent to push products.

The app also plans to roll out more strictly social features, like the ability to connect with friends.

It's not the only commerce platform looking to broaden its appeal in recent months. Flip, a TikTok-like app once composed purely of videos tagged with products, opened up to other content in July. It now hosts everyday videos it calls clips, which run the gamut from movie scenes to creator-on-the-street interviews and other types of content that would live on a general entertainment platform.

"The idea of social commerce over the last five years was that everyone built it to be a commerce platform where there's somebody selling you the product," Flip's CEO Noor Agha told BI.

Agha said Flip's clips feature is part of a push to merge entertainment and commerce. "If we cannot solve both, social commerce will never actually go mainstream," Agha said.

The opportunity is huge for companies in the category that can build an audience, as platforms like TikTok have shown. In a December EMARKETER forecast, the research firm predicted the number of US social-commerce buyers would hit 100 million in 2024, with sales crossing $100 billion in 2026. Social-shopping startups like Whatnot and ShopMy have pulled in tens of millions of dollars in new funding in the past few months as they chase new users.

TikTok made entertainment a must-have in social shopping

The push among shopping apps to add general entertainment is likely a response to the rise of TikTok's e-commerce platform, Shop. The app built an audience of more than a billion users globally through social entertainment before introducing commerce features.

"A lot of the social-shopping apps are trying to reverse engineer that entertainment component into their apps to make them more sticky and to keep users and audiences coming back," said Sky Canaves, a principal analyst at EMARKETER covering retail and e-commerce.

Social platforms in the US have spent years testing features to get users to buy stuff in-app, with mixed results. TikTok finally showed that consumers, if prodded enough, would get on board.

Canaves said TikTok has shown that social commerce can work, "but it needs to be grounded in content, and typically that's entertainment content and creator content."

Ultimately, that reverse engineering feat may be tough to pull off. In February, Amazon nixed its TikTok-like shopping feed, Inspire, in another sign that shopping-only video feeds lack staying power.

But relying on platforms like TikTok or Instagram for distribution is also risky for startups that don't want to be subject to the whims of Big Tech. Instagram, for example, has pulled back on commerce features in recent years.

LTK recently partnered with TikTok to integrate affiliate links within the TikTok app. But TikTok generally keeps its e-commerce features in-house. The company's future in the US is also uncertain due to a divest-or-ban law that targets the company and its owner ByteDance.

For social-shopping startups, building an entertainment platform where they can control everything may be the best path forward.

Putting social in social commerce

Making shopping feel more social is key to retaining users and growing an app's audience. Venz Box said a big part of that is tapping into the relationships users have with brands and the creators themselves.

LTK is encouraging creators to post more lifestyle content to the app so that users feel as connected to the creator on LTK as they do on larger platforms like TikTok or Instagram.

"We started investing in order to be the place that they retain, nurture, and grow their community," Venz Box said.

Community is a buzzword for social apps overall and has driven several trends in social shopping. Substack has several shopping-focused newsletters with established online and IRL communities. Meanwhile, TYB, a shopping-rewards platform cofounded by apparel brand Outdoor Voices' Ty Haney, is focused on building and maintaining communities of superfans with challenges and group chats.

Ultimately, every app is fighting for a share of the internet's most valuable commodity: consumers' time.

"I am willing to sacrifice that not every piece of content has something to buy in it because the opportunity set is so much larger if you can go deeper with people," Venz Box said.

• Meta is offering creators thousands to post exclusive short-form videos on Instagram reels.
• The deals require creators to post a certain number of reels on Instagram each month.
• Read the terms in the contracts Instagram sent creators.

Instagram wants to be the first place creators go to post short-form videos.

And it's attempting to do so with piles of cash.

With TikTok's US future in limbo, Meta has been contacting creators and their teams with deals offering thousands of dollars in exchange for exclusive video content on Instagram reels. The payouts described to Business Insider ranged from $2,500 to $50,000 a month and required the content to be exclusive to Instagram for three months. The Information first reported on the program last week.

BI viewed contracts and spoke with several talent managers whose clients have received these offers. The managers requested anonymity to protect business relationships. Their identities are known to BI.

Typically, the deals are being sent to creators with more than 1 million followers on TikTok.

Not every contract is the same. One manager told BI they couldn't see a clear pattern as to why some creators were offered more money than others.

The payouts are grouped into tiers:

• Tier 1: $50,000 a month.
• Tier 2: $25,000 a month.
• Tier 3: $15,000 a month.
• Tier 4: $5,000 a month.
• Tier 5: $2,500 a month.

But even the promise of a big payday hasn't been enough to lure in some TikTok creators. This underscores the challenges Meta may face in usurping TikTok's short-form dominance.

"To try and change consumer behavior, or at least the perceived acceptance of consumer behavior, by stemming down another platform, I just don't think is the right way of handling it," a second manager said.

Instagram is offering deals worth up to $300,000 over 6 months

Here's a glimpse into an offer that has been sent to several creators for a total of $300,000 over six months:

• Creators would be required to post new, never-before-seen short-form video content to Instagram as reels.
• Over the course of six months, creators would post at least 10 new reels on their Instagram accounts each month.
• This content must be exclusive to Instagram for three months.
• Videos must be at least 15 seconds and no longer than three minutes.
• Creators must post 25% more on Instagram reels than on their next-largest short-form-video platform.

• They must share two of the reels a month as an IG story.

• Once a day, they need to engage with fans via comments, shares, or replies.

• They must post twice a month on their primary platform (TikTok or YouTube), promoting their content on Instagram and encouraging their fans to follow them on Instagram via the link in their bio.

• Instagram may promote the creator's content through paid ads on TikTok, Google, and app stores.
• If creators meet these requirements, they will earn $50,000 each month for the duration of the six-month deal.

The second talent manager with knowledge of these deals said some of their clients turned down the offer, citing reasons like exclusivity and overall frustration with Meta. Some said posting multiple reels a day felt "cheugy," a Gen Z term for out of touch.

"It's not a good deal," the second manager said. "Having to track that you're posting 25% more to reels than TikTok makes this untenable."

The manager added: "Some clients are taking it because the money is good for them, and I've seen some clients pass."

Here are the terms for a second offer that has been sent to several creators for a total of $90,000 over six months:

• Creators would be required to post new, never-before-seen short-form video content to Instagram as reels.
• Over the course of six months, creators would post at least eight new reels on their Instagram accounts each month, totaling 48 videos.
• This content must be exclusive to Instagram for three months.
• Videos must be at least 15 seconds and no longer than three minutes.
• Creators must post more short-form video content overall on Instagram during this period than on any other platform, such as TikTok, YouTube, Snapchat, or X.

• If creators meet these requirements, they will earn $15,000 each month for the duration of the six-month deal.

Meta is also offering bonuses to lure TikTok creators

Word is getting around about Meta's offers in the influencer industry, two talent managers told BI.

"Meta is being really bullish on locking these in," a third talent manager who has seen similar offers from Meta said.

This isn't the only trick Meta has up its sleeve to woo TikTok creators amid a still looming ban or sale.

Meta launched a "Breakthrough Bonus" program last week. The program pays "eligible TikTok creators to help jump-start their growth on our apps," a spokesperson told BI. The compensation is up to $5,000 within a three-month period for posting reels on Instagram and Facebook.

Meta declined to comment on the specifics of these deals.

• TikTok is veering toward a US shutdown after the Supreme Court upheld a divest-or-ban law.
• The app is set to leave app stores and may go dark on Sunday if its owner, ByteDance, doesn't divest.
• TikTok creators and their teams are tired from months of uncertainty, but cautiously hopeful too.

TikTok is in trouble.

The company is set to disappear from US app stores on Sunday due to a divest-or-ban law that requires its owner, ByteDance, to sell the app by January 19 or essentially cease operating in the country. TikTok may stop showing content in the US and "go dark" over the weekend.

For TikTok creators and their teams, ongoing uncertainty around the app's US future has sparked frustration and fatigue.

"We've been dealing with this for months," said Julian Andrews, founder of talent management firm Talentiish. "I just sort of want the situation to be over so we know how to move on."

Some in the talent community are cautiously optimistic that a solution will emerge to save TikTok. President-elect Donald Trump has pledged to try to rescue the app once in office, though his options could be limited.

"So many of us are still holding out hope that it will work out," Barbara Jones, CEO of Outshine Talent, said.

Others aren't holding their breath and are instead focusing on established alternatives, such as Instagram reels and YouTube shorts, as well as challenger apps like Clapper, Flip, and RedNote.

"Many of our clients are making accounts on RedNote and Flip as well as downloading their data from the TikTok app," Jones said. "They are trying to be as prepared as possible."

Creators may be hesitant to commit to new platforms, however, when the advertising dollars are much more reliable on major players like Instagram.

Instagram is, for the most part, the platform of choice among those Business Insider spoke to who are pivoting from TikTok.

Fallen Media, which runs TikTok shows like "What's Poppin? With Davis!" said it will be heavily investing in Instagram reels, for example.

"I have suggested to my clients not to focus on any new platforms and focus on the tried and true," Andrews at Talentiish said.

In the meantime, there's still no clear answer as to what happens this weekend.

"The truth is we don't really know what's going to happen on Sunday, which I think is the crazy part," said Fallen Media CEO Sol Betesh.

Creators are exhausted and devastated to say goodbye to TikTok

As news stories around a TikTok ban swing between good news and legal defeats, some creators have sunk into despair. The Supreme Court loss on Friday hit particularly hard for those whose businesses depend on the app.

"The ruling is truly devastating for me as someone who built their platform starting on TikTok," said Sofia Bella, a TikTok creator with 4.8 million followers. "Losing the majority of my audience is a difficult reality to face, and while I'm doing everything I can to prepare, it's hard not to feel like I'm starting over."

Andrews said the job of talent manager has teetered between acting as a therapist and strategist for the creators they manage.

Some creators are actively fighting against a TikTok ban, including Vitus Spehar, who runs the news account @underthedesknews. Spehar has been covering breaking news and political developments around the divestment. They said Americans should call their senators and other representatives to demand action against the law.

Still, other creators who have experienced burnout from TikTok are welcoming a possible shift if the app goes down.

"Generally, the tone from most internet creators I've spoken to has been entirely apathetic," said Tati Bruening, a TikTok creator with 2.4 million followers. "The pacing of content creation for TikTok was a recipe for burnout."

Building a strategy for doomsday

Even as the creator economy braces for the loss of its favorite corner of the internet, this moment is a lesson for many.

"Stop building brands on social media that other people own," Jennifer Powell, a talent manager who works with creators like Tezza and Ty French, told BI. "This can and will happen again. Start your website, get newsletters going, blogs, use affiliates, turn it into a brand, and own your own little place on the web."

A TikTok ban could also be a gold rush for social media startups as they race to fill the void.

"There's never been a better time to start a creation or curation company," said Em Herrera, a former investor at Slow Ventures who recently founded a firm called Creator Venture Accelerator.

• Americans are rushing to download two Chinese social apps, days before a possible TikTok ban.
• Xiaohongshu and Lemon8 rose to the top spots on the Apple app store rankings on Monday.
• Both platforms could be subject to the same divest-or-ban law that's imperiling TikTok.

TikTok users are lamenting that the app could "go dark" in less than a week in the US due to a divest-or-ban law. At the same time, two other apps with Chinese owners have risen to the top of the Apple app store in the US.

On Monday, Xiaohongshu, also known as RedNote, and Lemon8, an app with the same owner as TikTok, hit the top two spots on the Apple app store rankings.

Xiaohongshu functions similarly to Instagram, but with more commerce features, while Lemon8 has been described by creators as a Pinterest-like platform.

The rush to download these apps is a bit of a head-scratcher, as they could be subject to the same divestment requirements as TikTok if the US government chooses to target them. The Protecting Americans from Foreign Adversary Controlled Applications Act applies to social platforms owned by countries that the US government views as foreign adversaries. TikTok became a political target because its owner, ByteDance, is based in China, which the US government has labeled a foreign adversary and Congress views as a national-security risk.

TikTok is clearly subject to the divest-or-ban law, as it's named in the bill's text. But ByteDance is also named, which raises the question of why its other app, Lemon8, is suddenly surging in popularity.

Christopher Krepich, the communications director for the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, previously told Forbes the bill would ban Lemon8 unless ByteDance divested. A spokesperson for the committee did not immediately respond to Business Insider on whether it would apply to Xiaohongshu.

The law was written broadly and could be enforced on any company owned by a foreign adversary that permits a user to "create an account or profile to generate, share, and view text, images, videos, real-time communications, or similar content." That could include Xiaohongshu if the US government chose to target the app.

The law does have some exceptions, including apps where users "post product reviews, business reviews, or travel information and reviews." That suggests Chinese e-commerce platforms Shein and Temu would not be targeted.

ByteDance, Xiaohongshu, Apple, and Google did not respond to requests for comment.

Why users are flocking to these two apps

It's tough to say exactly what's driving mass interest in Xiaohongshu and Lemon8. Some users may be flocking to the apps to find a replacement for TikTok, while others may simply like their product features. In December, Xiaohongshu had around 300 million monthly active users globally, Bloomberg reported.

Another possibility for the downloads surge is that TikTok users are choosing the Chinese apps as a tongue-in-cheek protest of the divest-or-ban law.

"It really is just retaliation towards the government in the simplest way, but in a way that feels very native to Gen Z," said Meagan Loyst, founder of the investor collective Gen Z VCs.

If millennials pioneered "slacktivism" with online petitions, Gen Z seems to be trying something new. You might call it "trolltivism."

"This is not the first time that trolling on a large scale has happened," Loyst said, citing the 2020 incident when TikTok users purchased tickets to Trump rallies. "It's trolling the US government."