💻 [OBO DIGEST] Meta Meltdown

Facebook’s Declining Users and What It Means for Online Biz, Loads of Social Media Updates, Industry Acquisitions, and More…

Written by: Online Business Owner • February 07, 2022

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Also a big welcome to our new subscribers – thank you for joining us – make sure you forward today’s newsletter to a friend if you find it helpful.

We’re grateful to each of you for your continued support!

Now onto this week’s news, trends, updates, and kick in the pants…

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News + Happenings

Zuckerberg’s $29 Billion Nightmare

Image Source: (www.unsplash.com/@helloimnik )

Last week was quarterly reporting week for companies and big tech across the U.S. And one controversial company was on everyone’s mind…

Meta.

Why? Because their Q4 numbers were *insert sad trombone sound* lousy.

For the first time in Facebook’s history, the world’s most popular social platform (but maybe not for long…) LOST half a million users during a 90-day period.

That’s…never happened before. While Facebook growth started to plateau in 2020 and 2021, the app still gained users each and every month. That was until the end of last year.

The report set off alarm bells across the tech and financial sectors and Meta lost 24% of its value when the stock market opened on Thursday (that’s equal to about $200 billion). Zuck, as the company’s founder and primary shareholder, lost $29 billion in the matter of minutes. 

(By the way, the stock has yet to recover…it lost another 9% from Thursday until now – at the time of this newsletter.)

So, what’s happening? Well, a veritable shit storm (to use a technical term) of circumstances has led us to today…

1. Facebook growth has probably hit a ceiling. Meaning, anyone who would be on Facebook is already on it. There aren’t many people left to join the site.

2. Poor moderation and misinformation policies finally bit FB in the behind – they’ve lost users over the past 5+ years during contentious U.S. elections, the Covid pandemic, and their role in last year’s Capitol insurrection.

3. Apple’s iOS changes in 2021 did a number on Facebook’s user experience AND income as 3rd party data for users on iPhones is becoming more and more difficult to access and ad costs are rising at a record pace.

4. Advertisers are fleeing to Google and YouTube because of the changes to Apple’s policies and how they’ve impacted Facebook. While Meta reported a decline in users, Alphabet (Google’s parent company), reported incredible quarterly results beating their previous estimates.

5. TikTok is crushing Instagram and stealing market share among younger users. And while IG continues to rip off TikTok at every turn, they can’t keep up with their growth.

6. Reels (IG and FB’s newest format and play to steal users back from TikTok) aren’t nearly as profitable for ads as feed and Story placements are. Users tend to skip Reels and navigate the interface differently.

7. As we reported last week, users are leaving Instagram or limiting their time on the app because of their mental health. Less users means fewer ad dollars for IG and Meta.

8. Zuck believes in the Metaverse and is spending BIG money on the yet-to-be-proven concept. Last year alone Meta spent $10 billion on developing the Metaverse. They plan to spend even more in 2022.

9. The Facebook whistleblower and The Facebook Papers did a number on Meta’s public image and now the company has Congress and the FTC breathing down their neck.

10. Speaking of Congress and the FTC, Meta has painted themselves into a corner for antitrust concerns. They’re so big now that acquiring other platforms will be next to impossible. All that’s left is to iterate on what they already own or create new platforms in-house.

11. No one wants to work for Facebook. Meta is struggling to acquire top industry talent as more and more engineers, product managers, and marketing pros avoid the company and leave for other opportunities.

12. People are becoming more and more cautious about their privacy online and the information they share on the internet – FB’s history of how they handle and use data has many users hesitant to continue with their profiles on the platform.

13. The Meta rebrand has done little to repair Facebook’s reputation or get users excited about what’s coming next. And, it was costly.

Credit to the New York Times for providing more detailed context on Meta’s current situation.

All in all, Meta is at a crossroads and the coming months could truly determine the future of the company and their collection of social apps.

Why this matters for online business –

By now, we hope you know that we don’t believe in playing Chicken Little around here – panicking never really fixes anything. But, we do think it’s important for online business owners to pay close attention to what’s happening with Meta.

Many of us rely on their platforms for marketing and delivering our programs, products, and services. And changes on these platforms could directly impact our businesses and income.

As we’ve said before when reporting on changing trends with Facebook, Instagram, and the like – these platforms aren’t going anywhere any time soon. They’re part of our culture and society and our daily life.

And, at the same time, they’re changing more rapidly than ever before and outside forces could change them even more sooner rather than later. 

Again, to reiterate a point we’ve shared before, this is a wake-up call for creators and entrepreneurs alike to build a content strategy that prioritizes owning their content and owning their distribution channels NOW.

Stop putting all of your trust and work into building on social media when it could change drastically in the near future.

Consider how you can create and build off of social and then use social to amplify and distribute your content.

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Social Media News + Updates

📸  Instagram, in their continued push to Reels, experiments with a Story Highlights to Reels conversion option; also testing 90-second Reels  

Ⓜ️  Meta updates Facebook and Messenger avatars (sparking complaints from users for their odd appearance) and adds avatars to Instagram

📌  Pinterest loses more active users based on their latest quarterly report – down nearly 50 million monthly active users for 2021 and losing nearly all of its growth momentum gained during the first 18 months of the pandemic ​​

👻  Snapchat hits new daily active user high, nearly 320 million, and record revenue for Q4 2021

⏰  TikTok is testing a new Inbox tab that merges notifications with messages all in one place

⏰  TikTok launches ‘TikTok Tactics’ – a new free video course platform for marketers to help learn how to advertise on the platform

🐦  Twitter shares that their automated “potentially harmful or offensive language” warning prompt on Tweet replies has reduced negative interactions by 30%

🐦  Twitter is working on a new “Articles” function to allow users to create and share longer blog-style content on the platform

🐦  Twitter is expanding their ‘Downvote’ option to more users on more devices to better understand user behavior

📺  YouTube made nearly $30 billion in ad revenue in 2020 with 55% (around $15+ million) of that being paid out to creators

📺 YouTube is considering adding a NFT feature to the platform to allow creators to make more money

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In Other News

🐙  Social media scheduling tool MeetEdgar has sold to SureSwift Capital; Founder Laura Roeder documents how she cold-emailed her way to being acquired (LauraRoeder.com)

📱  Apple iPhones will soon accept contactless payments directly without the need for external hardware or adapters (Bloomberg)

📊  Canva, now with over 75 million monthly active users, acquires data visualization startup Flourish which will allow users to turn their data into engaging visuals (TechCrunch)

🔎 As Google prepared to phase out 3rd party tracking by the end of 2023, they’re announcing a new “Topics” approach to replace cookie-based data collection and sharing

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THE ONLINE BUSINESS SHOW

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YOUR WEEKLY KICK IN THE PANTS

@melanie.johnsson

@newhappyco

@caleb_campbell

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About The Contributor

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