Learnings from Earnings: Meta Q3 2024

Meta was the OG social media platform (Facebook) and while some demographics may consider their products relics, they still carry tremendous influence in the industry. Below is some analysis of its relevant products and an interesting term that caught my eye.

Facebook

It's clear the trend in short-form video has taken hold and while late to the party, Facebook has entered the fray and is seeing results. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said:

"On Facebook, we’re seeing strong results from the global rollout of our unified video player in June. Since introducing the new experience and prediction systems that power it, we’ve seen a 10% increase in time spent within the Facebook video player."

They plan on putting a tab solely for video on mobile in early 2025.

Zuckerberg goes on to describe how the platform is using AI to better recommend content to its users, which to this point has not been leveraged between platforms. However, new "architectures" is proving to improve these outcomes, and the company will start using AI to learn the habits and preferences of a user from one platform, and leverage that on other Meta properties.

Instagram

To create any meaningful reach on Instagram it is clear creating reels is the only way. In fact, still images--once the hallmark of the platform--is a forgotten asset. The Meta team states:

"On Instagram, Reels continues to see good traction and we’re making ongoing progress with our focus on promoting original content, with more than 60% of recommendations now coming from original posts in the U.S."

Threads

I’ll be honest, I’m not on Threads . I’ve been on Twitter, now X , since the early days and haven’t really strayed. Of course, I’m also on LinkedIn and Instagram, but to me those three are all very different platforms. I was also on Facebook when I graduated high school but haven’t really engaged on that platform in a while. For this blog, however, I’ll give this an objective look at Threads. More importantly, the goal of this blog is to determine if Threads is a platform marketers should start taking seriously.

The short answer: No, it is not. At least not for B2B but perhaps for retail.

According to Mark Zuckerberg, Threads has “almost 275 million monthly actives. It has been growing more than 1 million sign-ups per day. Engagement is growing too.” To put that in perspective, after Elon Musk took over Twitter, now X, the platform’s monthly active users dropped by 15%. However, X still boasts 586 million monthly users. Granted, another source has X has 335.7 million monthly active users.

I think there are a couple ways you can slice this:

1. A good value – While this platform is growing, it’s clear there is a decent audience. I wouldn’t be surprised if retail marketers or small businesses are taking advantage of lower price point versus other platforms with higher engagement and a larger community.
2. One more platform to add – if use a social media management platform like Sprout or Hootsuite, why not just add Threads as well? Whatever you’re posting on X, you can cross-post to Threads as well
3. Ignore – When compared against its closest peer, X, it still has room to grow and doesn’t include the stakeholders you want to reach.

Furthermore, when I look at companies websites and scroll down to their social media icons, I can’t remember seeing a Thread icon. When companies see it necessary to put it next to a LinkedIn, X/Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, that’s when opinions on the platforms will start to change.

So, no, I don't think Threads is worth an extra effort for B2B marketers, or smaller thought leaders looking to grow their brand. The ROI isn't there yet.

To note, for those interested, Facebook was mentioned 12 times on the earnings calls, while Threads was mentioned 10 times. Granted, six of the 10 mentions came in an answer from Facebook to an analyst.

AI/Llama

For paid marketing campaigns, there doesn't seem to be much here although it is clear they are laying the ground work to leverage their AI (Llama) to aid in generating the creative for ad buyers and better deploying the ads to increase conversions by 7 percent. A pretty nice clip.

However, an interesting point was raised by Zuckerberg in the Q&A portion. He described the evolution of the platform's feed from serving posts from friends, to serving some posts from content creators, to now serving posts to almost all not-friend content creators. He then states:

"And I think we’re going to add a whole new category of content, which is AI-generated or AI summarized content or kind of existing content pulled together by AI in some way."

Meta clearly sees a very AI-laden social media future.

"Sessions"

When trying trying to understand how I should advise people on how to post content--type, length, platform--I'm always trying to find clues on how these platforms are tweaking their algorithm. The word "sessions" stood out to me.

This word signals how the Meta team approaches its users and how it categorizes their use. Here's what Zuckerberg said:

"Across both Facebook and Instagram, we are also continuing our broader work to optimize when and where we should show ads within a person’s session."

What this tells me is, they know each user spends a certain amount of time looking at content, let's say 5 minutes. What Meta is doing is looking at how many ads they can serve during your session without it negatively affecting your time on the platform. Therefore, if you're trying to build your brand on this platform, and likely others, you need to find a way to create content that Meta can serve ads around.

Conclusion

It's clear Meta wants to leverage its AI across all the platforms. To not only help you generate images and ads, but also to serve you better content that keeps you on the platform longer. As a business leader looking to grow your community, it is important to understand how these platforms can monetize your content. And by understand how they monetize content, you can shift your creation strategies to leverage their approach.