What happens when Facebook isn't Facebook?

10 million advertisers are at stake- not to mention a few billion users

Let’s just run through what Facebook is in the middle of trying to pull of here:

1. According to Axios, Facebook is going full TikTok: “the Facebook app that will transform its experience into a more TikTok-like selection of algorithmically chosen videos — and shunt off content posted by family, friends and groups into a separate side feed

2. Facebook is still in the middle of a complete overhaul of its ads infrastructure aimed at making sure its ads work in a way more privacy-focused fashion - a process that will take years, and isn’t guaranteed to work

This is a both a global social experiment the likes of which we’ve never seen, on top of a massive economic overhaul where the currencies, rules, and valuations are being completely rewritten.

Let’s take the first one - who says Facebook’s nearly 3 billion global users - many of which are old, angry right wingers, or parents who like to yell at each other about masks - want TikTok?

Yes, Facebook has made massive changes, many of which seemed crazy at the time (a NewsFeed? What?) that worked out fine. But this is about changing what Facebook is - its nature, its core use case, what people have been coming to it for - in some cases for decades.

Is TikTok what they want? Hold that thought.

David Pierce @pierce

Facebook is TikTok now which is Instagram now which is Facebook now which is TikTok now which is Instagram now which is Facebook now which is TikTok now

theverge.comFacebook doubles down on algorithms in the main feedAs it attempts to compete with TikTok.

The second massive existential question is tied to the first one. 10 million advertisers - many of which are small and mid sized businesses, use Facebook because what people do on Facebook is extremely well suited to sending people to their listings, stores, shopping carts, etc.

Will they find the new TikTok-y Facebook suits their needs at all? Talk about a Big IF. Yes, Facebook will have a separate tab where you can still see updates from friends and family. Maybe this is where the local plumbers or DTC brands or retailers will park their ads and be just fine. But more than likely, they’ll have to figure out how to make ads that fit the new TikToky feed, and generate the response and data they need. This is like taking a $115 billion economy, and, I don’t know, switching its core industry from car making to farming, and its currency from dollars to bartering beads and shells. - at the same time.

Yes, Facebook caters to big brands. Now, the company may need to double down here. TikTok’s ad revenue is surging, but it appears to be mostly from TV and video budgets. That is not generally how Facebook is viewed or its strong suit (please tell me if you disagree).

Can they shift gears there?

Of course, Facebook still has something TikTok doesn’t have - a bazillion logged in users, and brilliant back-end designed to help brands target them, match up their data, all that stuff.

Now, that targeting machine not what it used to be for sure. “Looking at all of the Walled Gardens, Facebook and Google, they just make it harder and harder and harder to really know what works,” said Meg Ciarallo, vp of brand and consumer marketing at Bolt on a recent episode of Next in Marketing.

Both companies, but Facebook more so, have been utterly rocked by Apple’s app targeting crackdown, which makes it exceedingly tough to get timely or reliable data on attribution (ask Snap).

“How can you make business decisions this way?” Ciarallo asked.

Good question. If this doesn’t work out, there’s always the Facebook Metaverse - which should hit sometime in 2033.

In the meantime, here’s my other question/fear - what if Facebook—which has proven pretty adept at building algorithms that suck people in obsessively - nails it? What if they are able to turn all the olds into viral video obsessed zombies? What if between Instagram (which is also becoming TikTokified) and New Facebook, they can combine a mesmerizing entertainment feed with first party data and use it to build a shopping colossus? This won’t be good for competition. It can’t be good for our elections, or our brains.