Social Media Updates: February 2026

By Brittany Siminitz | February 09, 2026

TikTok Debuts Smart Promotion Program

A new program for TikTok Shop merchants could significantly amplify their product offerings and simplify fees for selling on TikTok.

The new Smart Promotion replaces Co-funded Promotion, “a TikTok Shop program where both TikTok Shop and sellers contribute marketing funds, and TikTok strategically allocates these funds across promotional activities like product coupons and new customer discounts,” according to an announcement on the TikTok Shop Academy site.

To qualify to participate in Smart Promotion, a business must have a Shop Performance Score (SPS)—which is based on product satisfaction, product fulfillment, and customer service—of at least 3.5.

TikTok said the new program uses “TikTok’s algorithms to co-invest in marketing, guaranteeing a 5x ROI and driving GMV growth (+70% during Black Friday).” Additional benefits include automatic points rewards and time savings.

Downloads of TikTok Alternatives Slow

The surge in interest in alternative short-form video social apps following TikTok’s takeover in the U.S. by an apparently Trump-friendly joint venture has “tailed off significantly,” Social Media Today reported last week.

TikTok-comparable apps UpScrolled and Skylight had increased sharply and steadily in number of daily users leading up to a peak around Jan. 26–27. But in the few days after that, UpScrolled’s daily users plunged from more than 130,000 to fewer than 75,000, while Skylight dropped from around 80,000 to just over 50,000, according to a graph in Social Media Today.

UpScrolled had soared to No. 2 in downloads for free apps, said digital market insights firm Sensor Tower in a Feb. 3 post, which also noted that downloads of TikTok had declined 25% and that the app was down 4% in average daily users.

Meta Adds Features to Creator Marketplace

Meta has made improvements to its Creator Marketplace, which enables brands to find influencers to work with on paid partnership campaigns, the company said on Jan. 30.

A key upgrade is global expansion, as Meta is adding to the original 19 countries that had access to Creator Marketplace. Meta has also introduced creator recommendations for businesses, which show a brand creators who have explicitly expressed interest in working with it.

In the updated Creator Marketplace, new ads performance indicator badges highlight creators predicted to drive strong ad performance for a given brand. A similar new feature called creators search allows brands to find other creators based on a specific name or IG handle.

(Photo: Getty Images Plus/pressureUA)