American multinational technology platform, Meta Formerly known as Facebook is shifting its focus from news tab and bulletin to building a creator economy.
Facebook executive Campbell Brown recently disclosed to employees that the engineering and product teams at Facebook would in the future, spend less time on news and bulletin to heighten their focus on building a more robust creator economy.
A spokesperson from Meta also disclosed that the company is always assessing where to allocate resources and the team at the company remains committed to the success of creators on the platform.
However, there are reports that Facebook is changing its playbook as the company is already threatened by the surge of users on the TikTok platform. Facebook has been known for acquiring its competitors just like how it acquired Instagram.
Over the years, the company has completed more than 70 mergers and acquisitions, involving everything from facial-recognition technology to other major social platforms like Instagram and WhatsApp. However, if the company can’t acquire its competitors, it would try every means to replicate its popular feature.
Throughout it’s existence, there have been many instances of Facebook adopting new features. Due to the nature and timing of these implementations, there has been much debate as to whether Facebook was simply adapting to market trends or directly copying its competitors.
For instance, Facebook has in the past replicated the snap chat disappearing photo/video which it later included as a feature on its platform. Meta is concerned that it no longer has that dominance it held in the past, as according to insider intelligence, TikTok became the world’s third largest social network last year, behind Meta’s Facebook and Instagram.
In the first quarter of 2021, Facebook for the first time in its 18-year history, lost daily users which Mark Zuckerberg believes was caused by the emergence of TikTok. With the numbers still declining, TikTok seems to have gotten a firm grip on Gen Z who are the most users of the app.
Reports reveal that teen users were spending more time on TikTok than they were on Facebook and Instagram. Meta has attempted to retain users by adopting the TikTok app defining aspect. However, it seems not to have worked for Meta after they launched a feature on Instagram called reel, which is a feature similar to the TikTok endless watch and scroll video model.
Heavily threatened by TikTok’s dominance, Meta has been forced to change its playbook on Facebook, to focus more on the creator economy, shifting away from its news bulletin.
The company continues to push hard to develop its short-form video reels in an effort to match up with TikTok. Recall that in 2018, due to TikTok’s rapid growth in its number of users, Facebook made an attempt to push the company off the market, after it hit 650 million users.
Facebook had to launch a copycat app called Lasso, but the app did not meet up with their expectations, as it didn’t draw much interest as expected, they were forced to shut it down. As the TikTok user base continues to grow rapidly, it is quickly becoming the most preferred option for businesses and content creators to reach new larger audiences.
Will this Facebook recent playbook of shifting into the creator economy help the company regain its social media dominance, or will TikTok continue to give the company a run for its money?
