Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta, formerly known as Facebook, has announced that it will start allowing NFT cross-posting for users across both Instagram and Facebook.
Facebook and Instagram users can now post NFTs and digital collectibles simultaneously to their respective accounts by linking their wallets to either app. This NFT cross-posting feature is the most recent update to Meta’s journey to the Web3 and NFT spaces.
On Monday, Facebook’s parent company Meta updated a May 10 blog post to include this latest announcement about NFT cross-posting. The update comes three weeks after an August 4 announcement wherein Meta said it would expand the Instagram NFT integration.
In the August 4 announcement, Meta gave Instagram users from 100 countries the ability to post digital collectibles minted on the Flow blockchain to their accounts. The expansion also allowed users to add wallets supporting the Ethereum or Polygon blockchains. These users from 100 countries are estimated to be between 1 and 2 billion as of the second quarter of 2022.
NFT Cross-Posting Now Allowed
Monday’s announcement regarding NFT cross-posting will allow users to post their NFTs across both Instagram and Facebook. Users don’t even need to connect their wallets to both apps. They only need to connect their wallets—Rainbow, MetaMask, Trust, Coinbase, and Dapper—to either one of the apps.
There will be a page with a toggle switch where users will have the option to use their digital wallets across their Facebook and Instagram accounts. After switching the toggle switch on, they can start cross-posting digital collectibles they minted on Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow to both sites.
“As we continue rolling out digital collectibles on Facebook and Instagram, we’ve started giving people the ability to post digital collectibles that they own across both Facebook and Instagram. This will enable people to connect their digital wallets once to either app in order to share their digital collectibles across both,” the company said in the updated blog post.
Timeline of Meta’s NFT Experiments
Since Meta’s CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, announced his plans to bring NFTs to Instagram in March during the South by Southwest (SXSW) conference, the company has been full steam ahead. Here’s a timeline of what Meta has done so far in its journey through the digital collectible space:
- March 2022—Zuckerberg said during the SXSW conference that he is “bringing NFTs to Instagram in the near term.”
- May 2022—Instagram selected some creators in the USA for the NFT integration’s pilot testing. Around the same time, Meta said Instagram would support NFTs minted on Ethereum, Polygon, and Flow.
- June 2022—Zuckerberg allowed more people in the NFTs integration testing and said the same would be implemented on Facebook. In the same month, Facebook started showcasing NFTs to selected US-based creators.
- July 2022—Meta doubled down on its NFT support on Instagram by saying it will not back down on its plans despite the declining market.
- August 2022—Meta announced it would expand its support for Instagram NFT integration to 100 countries.
The testing of the NFT cross-posting is merely an extension of the items in the timeline. Nevertheless, it is unclear whether the NFT cross-posting feature will be available in all markets.
Talks are rife that, apart from extending support for digital collectibles, Meta may also be working on custom animations for NFT posts and digital collectible collections. It could be related to Zuckerberg’s earlier announcement near the start of the year that the company would look into displaying NFTs through Instagram Stories and make these Spark AR compatible, too.
Reaching a Wider Audience
At a time when other platforms such as Twitter and Reddit have their eyes set on NFT avatars, Meta is going a different route. The company wants to reach a wider audience by exposing them to features that allow them to show their NFTs through their posts.
Meta eventually plans to support all major blockchains and wallets to allow more people to display their NFTs on a mainstream platform. To people who are not into NFTs, the NFT cross-posting will be a chance for them to learn more about NFTs as they view these digital collectibles on Instagram and Facebook like regular posts.
Some artists were already posting their NFT creations on the photo and video sharing platform before Meta decided to support the integration. With this move, Meta will try to cash in by creating a long-term roadmap for creator support.
In May, businessman and Instagram head Adam Mosseri said the company would explore the sale of digital collectibles to give creators an additional income source. Meta also plans to build a digital art marketplace to make purchasing digital assets in the Metaverse much easier.
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