What's Facebook up to on TikTok? Scoping out the competition? DM'ing Charli? Recruiting beta testers? Buying ads? We'll soon find out, since the social networking company has set up its own TikTok account, where it has already racked up some 15,100 followers, at least at the time of writing, though it hasn't posted any public videos yet. The account's verified by TikTok and Facebook confirmed it's legit.

Apparently, Facebook's TikTok (as if to say it sounds a tad wrong) was spotted a couple of days back by Matt Navarra, who is a social media consultant.

I hope their first tiktok is a watermarked Reel.
Verified account, with the blue checkmark. Yet still, somewhat bare; that slightly weird bio reads: "We believe people can do more together, than alone." Comma, anyone? The account's bio links out to the Facebook app on Google Play, rather than the Facebook website or some official communication channel.

Also isn't it Meta now?

I mean, Facebook already killed its Twitter.com/Facebook account. And there's no Instagram.com/Facebook, either. It's Instagram.com/Meta.

But Facebook — err, Meta — told us the TikTok account is real.

The statement of the Meta official was quoted as saying, "Brands use a variety of channels, including some of our social media services, to engage and communicate with people who are using their goods and services every day. Our mission in helping a brand build its presence and grow a community on services such as TikTok or others is no different."

After recently reporting flat month-on-month active user growth in its last quarter and, more significantly, its first-ever decline in daily active users, Facebook could be simply looking to juice up its Gen Z user base by using TikTok, or at least its ad platform.

And while it is true that big brands use every available channel to market and communicate, it's a little amusing to see Facebook show up on TikTok, given how often the company has name-checked the short-form video app as its biggest competitive threat these days.

In its Q4 2021 earnings call with investors, for example, CEO Mark Zuckerberg repeated the point:.

"People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly," said Zuckerberg. Later he added, "TikTok is so big as a competitor already and also continues to grow at quite a faster rate off of a very large base."

The company wouldn't say anything else about the plans for TikTok, such as what type of content it was planning or if the account would run ads. (But do hit me up in the DMs if you see them!)

Facebook isn't the only Meta brand on TikTok. Instagram runs ads and also recently launched an Instagram Creators account, apparently.