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Say Thunder

You can now put your advert after Instagram's biggest Reels

Meta is giving businesses a way to advertise immediately after trending creator content. It could create an interesting middle ground between paid social and influencer marketing.

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Say Thunder
Sep 25, 2026
∙ Paid

Who is this for: B2C businesses and anyone working with creators. Potentially B2B businesses eventually.

There’s an Instagram advertising format I think more businesses should know about.

It’s called Reels Trending Ads and the idea is remarkably simple.

Someone creates a Reel. It starts trending. Rather than paying that creator to make something for your business, you can pay Meta to put your advert immediately after trending Reels.

Meta uses AI to identify the Reels that are trending and lets advertisers target either trending content generally or particular categories.

In other words, you can buy some of the attention that somebody else has already earned.

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