• TikTok is moving on quickly after losing access to Meta's ads platform in some markets.
• It's shifted ad spend to YouTube, Pinterest, and mobile-app networks, according to Sensor Tower.
• TikTok was a prominent ad spender on Meta before its ousting on October 8.

TikTok's message to Meta: If you won't take our ad dollars, your competitors will.

Meta took a bold stance this month by blocking ByteDance, TikTok's parent company, from running ads on Meta apps in some markets. Why? Well, Meta's answer was pretty straightforward. It didn't want to "run ads from a competitor whose goal is to pull people off our apps."

TikTok is now redirecting that ad spend elsewhere.

Since the ban went into effect on October 8, TikTok has shifted its ad budgets to other platforms like YouTube and Pinterest, according to allocation estimates provided to CMO Insider by the analytics firm Sensor Tower.

The share of TikTok's ad spend that went to YouTube rose to 17% between October 9 and October 16, up from 9% in the first week of October. Meanwhile, its ad spend on Pinterest grew to 9% during the same period, up from 3% in the first week of October. A majority of TikTok's spend — 58% — went to mobile-app ad networks like Google's AdMob, up from 19% at the start of October, when Meta was still an option.

Meta's move against TikTok "highlights the growing intensity of the competition across the digital landscape and across the two of them," said Kate Black, EVP of social strategy at Horizon Media. "For marketers, this really just reinforces the need to be agile and build balanced media strategies — and not having all your eggs in one basket."

Meta's TikTok ousting isn't unprecedented. Other platforms like Amazon have previously blocked competitors from running ads, while Twitter in late 2022 restricted users' ability to link to their accounts on social apps like Instagram and Mastodon, calling it "free promotion."

"Declining promotional services to a competitor is a normal business practice across industries," a Meta spokesperson said. Meta's changes will impact advertising policies in the US, Canada, Egypt, Indonesia, Japan, Thailand, and Vietnam.

For Meta, a company that pulled in $117 billion in revenue in the first half of 2026, losing one advertiser won't hurt much. Still, TikTok and ByteDance were notably prominent spenders on Meta's apps, according to Sensor Tower.

Meta will also lose ad spend from third-party marketers that link to TikTok or other ByteDance properties in their ads, further increasing its potential losses. Direct-to-consumer brands that may want to drive potential customers to TikTok Shop will miss out.

No Meta, no problem

For TikTok, losing access to Meta's more than 3 billion monthly users is a setback.

Like any social media giant, TikTok is incentivized to grow, grow, grow. Ads that target new users and drive new app downloads are part of the playbook — a strategy Meta uses to promote its own apps, like Instagram, too.

One TikTok staffer focused on user acquisition, James Gao, posted a LinkedIn callout on Sunday asking people to get in touch if they had ad inventory that could help the company meet its goals.

Horizon Media's Black said that while Meta controls the "lion's share" of social budgets, there are plenty of viable alternatives when it comes to using an ad to drive an action like an app download. Besides Google, YouTube, and Pinterest, marketers are increasingly turning to other platforms like Snapchat and Reddit, she said.

• Jeonghan and Joshua from the boy band Seventeen are debuting as a duo.
• To promote their much-hyped album, they've launched a visual diary on Pinterest.
• The duo told Business Insider about their chemistry, their music — and their joint mood board.

Jeonghan and Joshua from the mega K-pop boy band Seventeen are offering fans a dream to lose themselves in and a mood board for shopping.

The two vocalists are debuting as a much-hyped unit, a spinoff of the 13-member band's activities. As of Monday, they'll be working under the name JxJ — releasing their album, "DREAMSCAPE," and hitting the road together for a concert tour in six Asian cities.

In the meantime, they've been populating not only their Instagrams, but also a sprawling visual diary on their joint Pinterest account.

It's an interesting choice, as far as K-pop goes — usually, teasers are limited to platforms like YouTube or the K-pop-centric social network, Weverse.

In a written interview with Business Insider, the duo described their interest in Pinterest as a means of introducing the "visual world," concept, and vibe of "DREAMSCAPE."

The mood boards and the buffet of photos they've posted for fans to feast on are also a "little gift" to their audience.

"JxJ Diary is a space we created to share the concept and vibe of the album more directly with fans before its release. We spent a lot of time thinking about what kind of content they would enjoy, and decided to launch our first-ever Pinterest channel featuring different sides of ourselves," the duo said.

The singers said they wanted to explore the concept of "dreams" with the posts on their joint account. They've curated a collection of photographs and behind-the-scenes moments, including everything from candid shots to sneak peeks of their album photoshoots.

"We hope fans will take inspiration from the album's imagery and vibe, and express it in their own ways," they added. "It would be really fun to see them create their own version of 'DREAMSCAPE' on Pinterest by collecting photos, experimenting with styling, and curating images that reflect their personal tastes."

The business around the boys

That invitation for fans taps into a K-pop fan economy in which an album is not only heard or watched but also worn, collected, decorated, and remade.

The two Seventeen members belong to a group whose fan base collects their photo cards, travels to their concerts, and goes all in on albums and merchandise. Seventeen's 2023 album, "FML," still holds the record for first-day sales for a K-pop album, with more than 6.4 million copies sold. The band's "NEW" tour from 2025 to 2026 saw them play 31 shows in stadiums across Asia and four US cities, drawing close to a million fans, in person and online.

JxJ now gives Seventeen's fandom something else to get invested in: Jeonghan and Joshua together, and the similarities in their personal style.

Ayumi Nakajima, Pinterest's APAC head of content partnerships, told Business Insider the platform had seen a surge in interest in K-pop, making it prime territory for JxJ to establish a foothold.

Nakajima said that the collaboration with the duo's agency stemmed from the idea that K-pop fans connect with more than just the music. Pinterest gives fans a space to "explore the visual inspiration behind the artist's stories" and "save what resonates with them."

Pinterest has seen a strong surge in interest for all things Korea on the platform. Searches for "K-pop style" rose 19% globally year over year, while "K-beauty" searches rose 114%. In Japan, searches for "K-pop fan art" climbed 368%, while "trading card decoration" rose 77%.

"What visual experiences like the JxJ diary do is bring fans into an artist's creative world earlier, giving them more time to engage with the aesthetics, ideas and storytelling behind a release," Nakajima said.

"That early engagement can really shape fandom-led commerce, because fans aren't just showing up at the point of purchase," Nakajima added. "A look, a mood or a visual reference can spark interest weeks before someone decides what to wear to a concert, what beauty look to try, or what pieces they want to buy."

Chemistry

As for the boys behind the Pinterest board, they're prepped to serve up seven tracks spanning genres they're "exploring for the first time" on the new album. The duet songs, from early teasers of the music, involve experiments with house, synthpop, and dance rock. There are also two solo tracks — Joshua's punk rock offering, "Not Personal," and Jeonghan's dreamy bop, "Coloring."

"Seventeen has a certain energy when all 13 members are together, but we think the two of us have a different kind of chemistry when we are together," they told Business Insider. "Rather than trying to showcase something entirely new, we wanted to bring out our natural sides and individual charms as much as possible."

The album is also the product of "a lot of conversations" about the kind of art they each wanted to create.

"By sharing our ideas and the images we each had in mind, we were able to understand each other's tastes on a deeper level," the duo said.

They took a couple of trips together, too, which helped them "get to know each other better and shape a direction that felt uniquely ours."

"We also experimented with our vocals to show a new side of ourselves, so we hope fans will enjoy and support this album," they added.

"DREAMSCAPE" launches on October 19 at 6 p.m. Korea time.