Instagram, Facebook and TikTok in 2026: What Changed for Local Businesses

The biggest social media changes of 2025 and 2026 all push the same direction: toward vertical video, recommendations to people who don’t follow you yet, and automated ad targeting. Instagram Reels can run long but only reach new audiences at 3 minutes or less, shows profiles in a taller grid and caps hashtags at five. Facebook treats every video as a Reel, and TikTok’s US business now runs through a new majority American-owned joint venture. For a local business, the job is the same as before: post original vertical video people actually want to watch, and give the platforms good material to recommend.

Since February 2026 the direction has sharpened. Meta began charging for some business tools through Meta One, Instagram and Facebook widened their crackdowns on reposted content, and TikTok added a Local Feed and in-app bookings for attractions and lodging. Those changes are dated in the table and explained under each platform below.

If you would rather hand these changes to a team, our Detroit social media marketing agency has run social media for Detroit and Michigan businesses since 2015.

The short version

Where local businesses actually spend their time

Before chasing every change, it helps to know where your peers are. LocaliQ’s Big Small Business Marketing Trends Report for 2026, based on a survey of more than 300 small business owners published in February 2026, found over 90% use Facebook, up from 76% the year before. Instagram rose to 74% from 63%, and LinkedIn to 48% from 43%. TikTok went the other way, falling to 22% from 34%, which LocaliQ tied to growing competition on the platform and uncertainty about a ban. More than half of respondents (53%) said they plan to invest more in video marketing.

For most Metro Detroit restaurants, shops, venues and service businesses, that points to Facebook and Instagram as the core, with TikTok as an option worth testing if your customers skew younger.

Instagram

Reels can run long, but only three minutes get recommended

What happened. Instagram head Adam Mosseri announced in January 2025 that Reels could run up to three minutes, up from 90 seconds, saying the old limit was “just too short for those who want to share longer stories,” according to Engadget.

Instagram has since raised the recording limit again. Its help center now says reels can be up to 20 minutes, with a note that “Reels over 3 minutes won’t be recommended to new audiences.”

What it means. You now have room for a full kitchen walkthrough, a property tour or a start-to-finish project video without splitting it into parts.

What to do. Keep any Reel meant to reach new customers at three minutes or less. Longer ones are for people who already follow you. A longer Reel still needs a reason to keep watching in its first few seconds. Save the long format for content with a natural arc, and keep most promotional posts short.

The profile grid went vertical

What happened. In the same January 2025 update, Instagram replaced its square profile grid with taller rectangular thumbnails. Mosseri explained that most photos and videos uploaded to Instagram are vertical, and square crops were cutting off too much of them.

What it means. Your profile is often the second thing a new visitor sees after a Reel. Covers and graphics designed for squares may now crop awkwardly, with text cut off at the top or bottom.

What to do. Look at your profile on a phone. Re-crop pinned posts, choose Reel cover frames with the subject centered, and keep any text on covers well inside the edges.

Trial reels let you test on strangers first

What happened. Instagram introduced trial reels in December 2024. A trial reel is shown to non-followers first and does not appear on your grid or Reels tab unless you choose to share it. After about 24 hours you can see views, likes, comments and shares, and you can set it to share automatically if it performs well within 72 hours.

What it means. You can try a new format, like a talking-head explainer or a menu reveal, without cluttering your profile if it flops.

What to do. Use trial reels for experiments, not for time-sensitive posts like event announcements, which your existing followers need to see.

Edits, a free video editor from Instagram

What happened. Instagram launched Edits, a free video creation app for iOS and Android, on April 22, 2025. You sign in with your Instagram account, and it offers a timeline editor, effects and watermark-free export.

What it means. A small team can shoot, cut and caption vertical video on a phone without paying for editing software.

What to do. If staff already edit in another app, there is no need to switch. If nobody edits at all, Edits is a reasonable free starting point.

Five hashtags, maximum

What happened. Instagram began limiting posts and Reels to five hashtags in December 2025, according to Social Media Today. Instagram’s stated reasoning: “Using fewer (up to 5) more targeted hashtags, rather than many generic ones, can improve both your content’s performance and people’s experience on Instagram.”

What it means. The old habit of pasting 30 tags in a comment is over, and it was not doing much for discovery anyway.

What to do. Choose three to five tags that describe the post specifically, such as the neighborhood, the product and the occasion. Then write captions that name the same things in plain words, so the post makes sense to both people and the platform.

Reposting accounts lose recommendations

What happened. On April 30, 2026, Instagram said accounts that regularly repost content they did not create, or mainly share other people’s work as photos and carousels, would no longer be eligible for recommendations across the app, TechCrunch reported. The same protections already applied to Reels.

What it means. Followers still see these accounts, but reach to new people through Explore and suggested posts dries up. A business feed built on reshared customer photos, memes and press screenshots is exposed.

What to do. Keep most of what you post original. When you share a customer’s photo, ask, credit them and add your own caption or context.

You can reorder your profile grid

What happened. In June 2026 Instagram released grid reordering, Social Media Today reported. You can long-press a post and drag it to a new spot on your profile. Pinned posts stay at the top.

What it means. Your profile no longer has to run in date order. The posts a first-time visitor needs can sit where they will see them.

What to do. Put your menu, hours, prices, booking details or best sellers in the first rows, and revisit the order each season.

People can tune their feed by topic

What happened. Instagram extended its “Your Algorithm” controls to the main feed in June 2026, according to Social Media Today, letting people see, add and remove the topics Instagram uses to rank what they see.

What it means. Users can now ask for more of a subject, such as food or live music, and less of another. Posts with a clear subject are easier to match to those choices.

What to do. Make the topic of every post obvious in the first line of the caption and in the first seconds of a video: the dish, the event, the neighborhood.

Facebook

Every video is now a Reel

What happened. Meta announced on June 17, 2025 that all videos on Facebook would be shared as Reels, rolling out over the following months. Meta said Reels on Facebook “will also not have any length or format restrictions,” renamed the Video tab the Reels tab and added an audience choice when posting. Previously uploaded videos stay on profiles and Pages, and Meta said the change “won’t change what videos we recommend to you.”

What it means. There is no longer a separate decision between “video” and “Reel.” A 40-second promo and a six-minute event recap go through the same flow and land in the same Reels feed.

What to do. Build one vertical-first video workflow for Facebook and Instagram. When you post, check the audience setting so public posts are actually public.

Reposting other people’s content now costs you reach

What happened. On July 14, 2025, Facebook said it would act against accounts that repeatedly reuse other people’s videos, photos or text without permission or meaningful changes. Penalties include reduced distribution and temporary loss of monetization. Facebook said simply stitching clips together or adding a watermark does not count as meaningful enhancement.

What it means. Pages that fill their feeds with viral clips from elsewhere are the target. Original footage from your own business is what the system is built to reward.

What to do. Shoot your own. If you share a customer’s video, ask first, credit them and add something of your own, such as commentary or context. Our guide to short-form video covers how to produce a steady supply without a studio.

Meta spelled out what counts as unoriginal

What happened. On March 13, 2026, Meta clarified Facebook’s original content guidelines. Reaction videos, “watching along,” stitched clips and simple edits of other people’s footage count as unoriginal. That content is shown lower in Feed and Reels, and accounts that mostly post it can lose recommendations and monetization.

What it means. The July 2025 rule now has examples, and the examples match what many small Pages post to fill a slow week.

What to do. Replace reposted clips with short footage you shoot yourself. If you use someone else’s material, add real information or commentary, not just a border or a caption.

Some Pages are being capped at two link posts a month

What happened. After Meta One launched, some Page managers reported a prompt limiting their accounts to two link posts per month unless they subscribe, Social Media Today reported on September 17, 2026. Meta has not announced this as a policy for all Pages.

What it means. A restaurant or venue that regularly posts links to menus, tickets or reservations could run into the cap.

What to do. Watch for the prompt. Keep your Page’s action button pointed at bookings or orders, and save link posts for the announcements that need them.

Meta One: some tools now cost money

Paid plans for businesses

What happened. On September 15, 2026, Meta introduced Meta One, a subscription across its apps. Business plans start at $14.99 a month for Essential, which includes a verified badge, impersonation protection and more Meta Business Agent use. Advanced, from $49.99 a month, adds links in organic posts and Reels, scheduling Stories up to 30 days ahead, exportable analytics and deeper audience insights. Expert starts at $149 and Max at $499. Meta says plans and pricing may vary by region, app and account.

What it means. Posting stays free, but some tools that social managers relied on, starting with clickable links in posts and Reels, now sit behind a monthly fee.

What to do. List the paid features you would actually use every week. For most small businesses, the question is whether links in posts and longer Story scheduling are worth $49.99 a month. If you work with an agency, ask whose account the plan sits on.

An AI agent for customer messages

What happened. On June 3, 2026, Meta expanded Meta Business Agent, an AI that answers customer messages, recommends products and books appointments, to Instagram and to businesses of all sizes. Getting started is free, and Meta said access would move to paid subscriptions, which the Meta One tiers now reflect.

What it means. Common questions about hours, parking, reservations and prices can be answered automatically, day or night.

What to do. Start with the questions you answer every day, check the agent’s replies for a week, and keep a person on anything involving complaints, refunds or custom quotes.

Meta ads: fewer dials, more automation

Detailed targeting exclusions are gone

What happened. Meta began removing detailed targeting exclusions, the option to exclude people based on interests, behaviors or demographics, from new campaigns in 2024 and phased them out of existing campaigns in 2025, as Social Media Today reported. Meta said its internal testing found median cost per conversion improved by 22.6% without them. Custom audience exclusions and account-level controls remain.

What it means. You can still target by location and still exclude lists you own, like past customers or website visitors. You can no longer carve out, say, people interested in a competitor category.

What to do. Build custom audiences for current customers and recent site visitors so you can exclude them from prospecting ads. Keep your location targeting tight to the area you actually serve.

Advantage+ is the default direction

What happened. In February 2025 Meta introduced a streamlined Advantage+ setup across sales, app and leads campaigns, renamed Advantage+ shopping campaigns to sales campaigns and added Advantage+ leads campaigns, which it said produced a 10% lower cost per qualified lead in early tests, according to Search Engine Land. Those figures are Meta’s own.

What it means. Meta’s system decides more of who sees your ads. The practical lever you have left is the ad itself.

What to do. Give the system several distinct creative options, especially vertical video, and let it find what works. Feed it real outcomes such as leads, calls or bookings, not just clicks. Check placement and location reports regularly, because broad delivery can drift outside your service area. For budgeting, see our guide to social media management costs in Detroit.

Exclusion-only customer lists

What happened. In August 2026 Meta added customer-list audiences that can only be used to exclude people from ads, not to target them, Social Media Today reported. They can be applied across an ad account as a default.

What it means. It does not bring back interest-based exclusions, but it makes it easier to stop paying to reach existing customers, staff or people who opted out.

What to do. Upload your current customer and staff lists as exclusion audiences and apply them to prospecting campaigns.

TikTok’s new US ownership

What happened. The TikTok USDS Joint Venture closed on January 22, 2026, according to TechCrunch, under the executive order approving the sale of TikTok’s US operations. In TikTok’s announcement, Oracle, Silver Lake and MGX each hold 15%, ByteDance keeps 19.9%, and the venture is responsible for US user data, retraining the recommendation algorithm on US data, content moderation and software assurance. TikTok’s global entities keep commercial activities including e-commerce, advertising and marketing. TikTok said the deal lets more than 200 million Americans and 7.5 million businesses keep using the platform. The venture also introduced new terms and a new privacy policy that, CBS News reported, permits collecting precise location data if a user enables it.

What it means. The threat of a US shutdown that hung over 2024 and 2025 is resolved for now. Ad accounts and TikTok Shop continue under TikTok’s global business. The algorithm is being retrained on US data, and TikTok has not said how recommendations will differ, so expect some shifts in what performs.

What to do. If you paused TikTok because of ban risk, it is reasonable to test again. With only 22% of small businesses on TikTok in LocaliQ’s survey, fewer local competitors are posting there. Reuse the vertical video you already make for Reels, remove other platforms’ watermarks and judge results on your own numbers after a few months.

TikTok’s new local and booking tools

The Local Feed

What happened. On February 11, 2026, TikTok announced the Local Feed, a home-screen tab for US users that shows nearby restaurants, shops, events and posts from small businesses and local creators. Sharing precise location is optional.

What it means. For the first time TikTok has a surface built for local discovery, which favors businesses that make it clear where they are.

What to do. Tag your location on every post and name the street, neighborhood or city in the caption and on screen.

TikTok GO for bookings

What happened. On May 12, 2026, TikTok introduced TikTok GO, which lets US users discover and book hotels, attractions and experiences from videos, with partners including Booking.com and Expedia.

What it means. Attractions, tours and lodging listed with those partners can be booked straight from TikTok content, including creators’ videos.

What to do. If you run an attraction, tour or place to stay, confirm your listings on the partner platforms are complete, then make videos that show the experience people would be booking.

Automated search ads and AI ad tools

What happened. TikTok’s Q3 2026 product preview, published July 28, 2026, included Smart+ Search Ads, automated campaigns that show ads in TikTok search, and Symphony tools that turn business details into ad briefs and videos. Some features are in limited release.

What it means. TikTok is cutting the setup and production a small advertiser has to do, the same direction as Meta’s Advantage+.

What to do. If you test TikTok ads, try search ads with a small budget and judge them on calls, bookings or sales, not views. Use AI-generated video as a supplement to real footage, not a replacement.

September and October 2026 additions

Your Algorithm comes to Facebook. On October 13, 2026, Meta brought Your Algorithm to Facebook: a space in the three-dot menu on any post where people say, in their own words, which topics they want more or less of in Feed and Reels, with follow-up questions after they tap “Interested” or “Not interested.” Meta calls it “a dedicated space to tell us exactly what you’re into.” What it means: the topic matching that already shapes Instagram now shapes Facebook Pages, so a post that never states its subject has nothing to match. What to do: name the dish, the event or the neighborhood in the first line of every Facebook post and video.

Meta’s Muse agent gets business tools. On September 29, Meta introduced Muse for Small Business, connecting its personal AI agent to Facebook Pages, Instagram professional accounts and Meta ad accounts, plus tools such as Shopify, QuickBooks, Stripe, Canva, Slack and Notion. Meta says “nothing publishes, sends, or spends without your approval.” Muse is free for most uses, with paid plans for heavier use, and the agent itself is available in the US and Canada. What it means: it can draft posts and replies from your own account data. What to do: use it for drafts and keep publishing approval with a person who knows the business.

Forum, a standalone app for Facebook Groups. Also on September 29, Meta launched Forum in the US, a dedicated Groups app with an AI “Ask” tool that surfaces group posts, topic labels and a recognized-member role. What it means: neighborhood and buy-and-sell groups, where many local recommendations happen, get their own front door. What to do: keep answering questions in local groups from a personal profile where the group’s rules allow it.

Edits gets an assistant and a carousel editor. Instagram’s free Edits app added an assistant on September 30 that reads your account’s views, retention, shares and comments and suggests hooks, concepts, captions and trending audio, free with a daily prompt limit and more usage through a Meta One subscription. On October 7 it added a carousel editor: photos and video on one canvas with layout presets, text that runs across slides, and sharing straight to Instagram. Carousels are on iOS now, with Android listed as coming soon. What it means: free performance analysis and a free carousel builder for a one-person social operation. What to do: ask the assistant each month what connected most, and build the next menu, before-and-after or event-recap carousel in Edits and compare saves.

YouTube Shorts ranks original content higher. On October 1, YouTube said in a help-community post, as quoted by Social Media Today, that it is updating its recommendation systems to prioritize original content and reduce the reach of channels that mainly aggregate or re-upload other creators’ videos. This is a ranking change; monetization rules did not change. What it means: the same originality rules Facebook and Instagram adopted this year now apply to Shorts. What to do: post your own footage; a reposted clip with a voiceover will not count as original.

TikTok: a new ad placement and a simpler Smart+. On October 5, TikTok made the TikTok Ad Network (formerly Pangle) generally available for US targeting, extending campaigns to about 400,000 third-party apps, and announced Lead Agent, Buy Direct and a Shopping Assistant as eligibility-based tests with no dates. An upgraded Smart+ merges manual and automated campaigns into one flow where you choose full, partial or manual control over audience, budget and placements. What it means: a placement that looks like a default can spend a local budget outside TikTok. What to do: check placements on every campaign and deselect TikTok Ad Network unless you want off-app reach; when the new Smart+ appears, keep the audience manual (your service area) and let the budget automate.

Meta ads: Reels Trending Ads and more automation. At its Brand Building Summit on October 15, Meta opened Reels Trending Ads to all advertisers with 15 always-on topics and seasonal lineups, with audience exclusions for the format promised “later this year.” At Advertising Week on October 6, Advantage+ creative gained the ability to turn static images into video ads, now generally available, and the Meta AI assistant in Ads Manager is testing creative insights and conversational campaign edits. What it means: a small budget can sit next to trending Reels in a topic that fits the business, and more of the ad build is automated. What to do: test one seasonal Reels Trending Ads topic and judge it on bookings or calls; review every auto-generated video before approving it; keep location targeting tight.

Google Business Profile menu tags. On October 9, Google added gluten-free and dairy-free dietary attributes to food menu items in the Business Profile API. What to do: restaurants with those options should tag the qualifying items in their profile or menu tool.

Reported, not yet confirmed by the platforms: Meta switching on “product browsing” inside existing Facebook and Instagram ads on October 28 unless advertisers opt out (per ppc.land); a Boost option for Instagram Lives; Facebook link-post caps by Meta One tier. We will move these up once a first-party page exists.

What hasn’t changed

Every change above rewards the same habits. Post original vertical video on a steady schedule. Show real people, real places and real products. Answer comments and messages. Use local specifics, like the street, the neighborhood or the event, because that is what makes a Detroit business stand out from national accounts in the same feed.

The businesses that struggled with these updates were mostly relying on tactics that were already fading: hashtag stuffing, reposted content and hand-built ad audiences. The ones that were already making their own video barely had to adjust.

Where RDG fits

Our Detroit marketing agency makes short-form video and runs social accounts for local businesses every week, so these changes show up in our planning as they happen. If you want a production partner for the video these platforms now favor, see our short-form video production services. If you would rather hand off the whole account, see how our social media management works or talk to us.