Faced with a decline in the number of users, Facebook is expected to develop a social network following the model of TikTok.
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| TikTok is becoming a big threat to Facebook. Photo: Xeva |
Meta, Snapchat concerned about TikTok
Short videos are a feature pursued by many social networks, notably Snapchat and Facebook. Snapchat added a Spotlight section last year and got a lot of attention. Meta's Instagram also has Reels with similar functionality. Facebook alone prioritizes videos with the Watch feature.
"Snapchat users are increasingly watching videos on Spotlight," Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap, the company behind Snapchat, told investors last week. "This is a continuation of the trend we have observed during the pandemic."
Spiegel also noted that Snapchat is shaping Spotlight as a place where audiences can discover new content, topics, and communities of creators, and engage with them more deeply. Currently Spotlight has a full-screen design with interactive buttons quite similar to TikTok.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg is even concerned about TikTok and considers ByteDance's product "a formidable threat".
"People have a lot of choices about how to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing so fast because of this," he said during an investor meeting on February 3.
Reels - a product that confronts TikTok
Meta just had a dismal quarter when most metrics fell, except for Reels - the short video feature built into Instagram. During a meeting with investors, Zuckerberg confirmed Reels is the company's fastest-growing content format.
Meta introduced Reels on Instagram from August 2020. The Facebook Reels version was also revealed from last September, but it was only released in a limited manner. This feature is basically similar to TikTok when it comes to allowing users to create short videos with some effects, music ... included.
Despite having a database of hundreds of millions of regular users on Instagram, Meta admits Reels is not attractive enough compared to TikTok. "The problem is that TikTok has become such a big competitor that it is growing at a very fast rate," Zuckerberg said. "While we are compounding profits with Reels, our competitors are having similar success."
According to the head of Meta, Reels has started to link and use features and data from News Feed and Stories - the two sources that bring in the most money on Facebook. He is confident advertising will thrive on Reels, so the company can convert revenue like its successful PC-to-mobile strategy.
However, the conversion will face many difficulties. Zuckerberg himself admitted to investors that "a lot of work remains to be done here".
TikTok is attracting young users
In fact, Reels is being left quite far behind by TikTok. According to a 2021 Forrester survey, TikTok reached 63% of Americans between the ages of 12 and 17, while Instagram dropped from 61% to 57% over the same period.
"The overall negative perception of Facebook and Instagram is hindering our ability to attract new users, especially teenagers. Instagram isn't a great app anymore. It's lost its slick, aged look. gone and lacks traction," Brendan Gahan of advertising agency Mekanism told WSJ.
Andre Brown, creator on online platforms, said that he regularly posts videos with similar content on both TikTok and Instagram every day. While each Reels video has an average of 15,000 views, TikTok posts average over 100,000, possibly even millions.
Brown admitted that Meta paid for the content to appear on Reels. However, this person revealed that 85% of monthly revenue comes from brands paying for his videos on TikTok.
"If you want to reach a lot of people, want your content to be widely available, TikTok is still the number one route to exponential growth," Brown told the WSJ.
