With Gen Z migrating to new social media, companies should focus on building communities in-app rather than depending on other platforms.
Social media is dying — at least the way businesses have come to know it. Meta’s earnings call is just the latest signal that Facebook is no longer the ultimate destination for brand awareness and connecting with customers. The tech titan’s profits were cut in half compared to the same quarter a year ago. This sent its stock spiraling.
Two main culprits seem to be at play: a significant drop in digital advertising (thanks to Apple’s App Tracking Transparency) and younger users drifting to newer platforms, like TikTok, at the expense of Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
While a new wave of social apps have experienced explosive growth among Gen Z users and others, a simple truth remains: When you don’t own the platform, you can’t truly control your interactions with your audience. And this should give businesses pause as they think about their next steps.
Facebook, circa 2010, was arguably the place for businesses to build a community. That’s not to say other social platforms didn’t have communities at the time, but Facebook was the lowest common denominator.
Companies created business pages and encouraged their audiences to “like” them, inviting consumers to engage with content there. This was all well and good — until it wasn’t.
About five years in, businesses noticed that their Facebook pages were generating less and less organic engagement among their fans. On closer inspection, it was apparent that Facebook’s algorithms gained control of what had previously been organic reach. The social giant’s new revenue model was born. Businesses started paying Facebook to show people their content via boosted posts and advertising campaigns.
Now, in light of the iOS 14 update and the cookieless future of advertising, which will limit the amount of user data Facebook collects from third parties — and therefore its ability to target ads with the same granularity — Facebook’s stranglehold on brands isn’t what it used to be. Couple that with younger generations’ preference for other social sites and services, and businesses are at a crossroads.
