Living in a digital world, can you remember the time when Facebook was not a significant part of your life?
From connecting with old friends to improving your business, Facebook has it all. No wonder even the slightest change can affect the platform’s stakeholders including business owners & digital marketers. In February, 2022, Meta experienced the biggest stock price drop in history. How did this happen and how will it affect its users?
The first issue actually came from Apple’s newly updated privacy policy which will likely stay for the long run. Apple’s users now have more control over how they want to share their data with advertisers like Facebook. And apparently, many users tend to opt-out. This disruption will make it more challenging for Meta to be precise in targeting ads which directly reduce the value of their advertising.
The second reason why the stock plummets is the fast growth of TikTok and how Gen Z tends to move around it. TikTok is without a doubt, one of the most influential platforms in today’s world. With their continuous update of their advertising platform, Meta has a lot of homework to keep it a healthy competition. Furthermore, the shift of usage from Millennials to Gen Z who prefers more diversity that TikTok can offer will surely create a whole new dilemma for Meta. Will they stay true to their business model and keep their identity or will they sell out to compete with the swiftly growing TikTok?
These issues, among many others, are the reason why Meta’s stock price stumbled during the first quarter of 2022.
How does it affect business owners and digital marketers?
With the uncertainty of targeting from Meta Business Manager and seemingly positive growth from TikTok, business owners and advertisers slowly migrate their online marketing strategy to TikTok. Of course not all businesses fit the target audience that TikTok can offer, some stay loyal to the steady Facebook and Instagram ads.
As a digital marketing agency, BDD is fully committed to enhancing each brand’s business strategy which means herding brands to explore TikTok’s new features to boost their ad performance. This surely affects the ad spend allocation which initially was poured into Facebook, now shared with TikTok’s ad platform. Sure that Facebook offers a more settled campaign structure but TikTok’s upper funnel campaign set up is a game changer. For this reason, digital marketers usually suggest brands to boost their brand awareness using TikTok and set up conversion campaigns on Facebook and Instagram.
Due to this circumstance, its quarterly results showed advertising income falling which triggers another discussion – will the stagnant Facebook collapse under the ever changing digital industry?
