What will happen to Facebook in 2023?

TL:DR - I used to think of Facebook as losing its importance. But I've changed my mind and think it's just as relevant as ever and should probably be part of your marketing plans for 2023.

Believe it or not, Facebook is now in its 19th year. To put this into perspective, there are Gen Zers out there who have never known life without the first ‘proper’ social media platform. Blimey.

It’s no secret that Facebook has gone through its fair share of facelifts over the years, but far from being the cool hangout it once was, the site has become so cluttered with brands and pages vying for attention, that many users - particularly those under the age of 30 and in western countries - have fled the site in their droves.

In this article, I’ll take a closer look at the platform’s recent tumultuous misadventures and what the future may hold for Facebook in 2023.

Facebook? Who on earth still uses Facebook?

OK, so first the good news for Facebook. LOTS of people - just under 3 billion as of Q3 2022 in fact - still actively use the platform. Just think about that, THREE BILLION each month.

That’s nearly 1 in 2 people across the whole world.

Quite an incredible number however you look at it.

Articles reporting the decline of Facebook have frequently made headlines in the last year, but it is still where the vast majority of the world’s social media users reside - and where users go, advertisers follow. Facebook remains the most used online social network on the planet, and has been on a constant upward trajectory since its launch in 2004. India accounts for approximately 10% of all global users with the USA, Indonesia and Brazil all with over 100 million users respectively.

With so many users, why is Facebook in trouble?

Firstly, they have made some poor strategic moves. During the pandemic, everything seemed rosy for Facebook as people stayed indoors and lived their lives online. Facebook saw this as a huge opportunity and promptly doubled its headcount, believing a golden era of online opportunity was dawning. The steadfast belief that the good times were gonna roll carried on into 2022, with Meta, Facebook’s parent company, drafting in more than 15,000 new employees between January and September. But fast forward to November, and we find Meta announcing plans to cut 11,000 jobs (more than one in eight staff), with Mark Zuckerberg conceding his hiring extravaganza may have been somewhat misjudged:?

"I made the decision to significantly increase our investments," Zuckerberg told Meta employees in a statement, "unfortunately, this did not play out the way I expected."

No sh*t, Sherlock.

Zuckerberg has, however, indicated he is still committed to the company’s controversial multibillion-dollar punt on virtual reality, saying the metaverse project was a “high-priority growth area”...which will provide little comfort to the 11,000 staff he laid off, I imagine.

Secondly - data breaches & fines. In recent years, Facebook has been the target of several high-profile security breaches that have compromised the personal data of millions of users - the most recent incident seeing Meta slapped with a ￡288m fine by the Irish Data Protection Commission for a data leak that lead to the personal details of over 533 million Facebook users being published online. They have also just been fined $414m by the EU for basically forcing personalised ads onto its users. And let’s not forget the whole Cambridge Analytica caper...?

By adding these breaches & fines to the many others over the past few years, it’s little wonder the company faces increased scrutiny over their data protection practices and commitment to user privacy. Proof perhaps, that people aren’t leaving the platform solely due to its lack of credibility, but also due to the realisation it’s a complete liability.

Thirdly, and perhaps most significantly, Facebook is losing significant popularity with teenagers and young adults, particularly in Europe, where the number of monthly users showed a sharp drop in Q2 of 2022, and also in the US, where growth is slowing considerably.

Further evidence that the decline in popularity is most prevalent among a younger demographic can be demonstrated in a survey conducted by US research company PEW Research Center. After surveying a group of US teenagers aged 13 to 17 last year, the company’s findings revealed that while TikTok is now the second most popular social media platform available today, the share of those surveyed who say they use Facebook (a dominant social media platform among teens in a similar survey conducted in 2014-15), has nosedived from 71% then, to 32% in 2022. Ouch.

Which isn’t what Zuckerberg and co want to hear. Like the Wicked Queen howling in rage at no longer being the fairest of them all, Facebook is determined to bask in a youthful glow once more.

Is Facebook still used as much in the UK?

Surprisingly, yes.

According to Statistica, Facebook had 53.46 million active users as of September 2022, a whopping 16% more than in the same month 2020. Moreover, it is still far and away the most popular social media platform in the country.

That said, there is a gradual downward trajectory in audience share from May onwards, but it’ll be quite some time (in my opinion) before it is overtaken by any of its competitors.

In terms of age demographics, users aged 25 to 34 years old made up the largest audience of Facebook in the UK as of September 2022, accounting for 24.5 percent of all users, followed by the 35-44 age range. Worryingly for Facebook, the age range with the lowest number of users is 13-17 (less than half the amount of users aged 65+).

Facebook in 2023 and beyond

According to a Land of the Giants podcast, if you want to understand the future of Facebook, just open TikTok.

A leaked internal memo revealed back in summer of 2022 highlighted Meta’s future plans for the platform. And while the memo didn't explicitly mention TikTok, there are clear comparisons. Written by Head of Facebook, Tom Alison, the memo explained the significant role video will play moving forward, as well as the importance of putting engaging content in front of users.?

The first update outlined in the memo was the integration of Reels and Stories above the news feed, thus boosting their visibility. Also highlighted were changes coming to the platform's messaging capabilities. In 2014, Messenger was separated from the main Facebook app, but the intention is to reintegrate it with the primary mobile app, with cross-platform messaging available to users across Facebook, WhatApp and Instagram.

Facebook also plans to make changes to its ‘share’ button, making it easier for users to share posts with friends and small groups via direct messages. Tom Alison has commented on how the social media landscape is shifting towards personal sharing, stating in an interview with The Verge,

“what we’re really finding is that people want to connect over content, and so a lot of where we’re going with Facebook is trying to bring you the best content that’s going to really cater to your interests, but then making it super easy to share that and discuss and connect with other people in your network over that.”

The Facebook Discovery Engine strategy

The leaked memo was also where we first heard about Facebook’s destiny as a ‘Discovery Engine’. Zuckerberg has outlined plans to more than double the amount of content from recommended accounts on the platform (and Instagram) by the end of 2023, explaining that currently, recommendations account for about 15% of the content on Facebook.

This concept, referred to by Zuckerberg as the ‘Discovery Engine,’ represents a significant shift from Facebook's traditional focus on showing posts from users' social networks, or lists of friends.?

This initiative clearly aims to compete with TikTok's heavy use of AI to promote video suggestions from any source, a strategy that has propelled TikTok to become one of the most widely-used apps in the world and spawned a whole new generation of internet superstars. To put it simply, if you’re on TikTok you’re in with the in crowd, baby.

Following some rather uncomfortable results for Q2 last year, Zuckerberg gave further insight into the plan, stating that as the Discovery Engine "finds additional content that people find interesting, that increases engagement and the quality of our feeds.", adding that Meta will use AI to recommend all publicly shared content on its platforms, such as links or photos.?

Not great news if you’re a fan of old school Facebook, i.e. a feed full of photos of your Aunty Glenda’s trip to Rome or a rant about parking from that guy you went to school with.

But Zuckerberg is adamant that these changes are necessary, as trends have demonstrated a shift from users sharing content in feeds and instead communicating via private messages, leaving the feed to emulate that of TikTok’s. One of the core secrets for its meteoric success lies in its highly addictive ‘For You’ page which is a bespoke list of the most popular content from across the entire platform aligned to your taste and interests - and Facebook wants a piece of that pie.

This approach has already made its way onto Instagram, sparking a revolution from some users including various Kadashians and Jenners (who have one or two followers, so I hear) where their demand was clear - stop trying to be TikTok and ‘Make Instagram Instagram again”.

Does Zuckerberg still actually care about Facebook?

Not according to Bill George, a senior fellow at Harvard Business School and former CEO of medical technology company Medtronic, who believes Zuckerberg’s poor leadership skills are slowly dragging Meta, and Facebook toward failure.?

“I think Facebook is not going to do well as long as he’s there,” George told CNBC Make It, “he’s likely one of the reasons so many people are turning away from the company. He’s really lost his way.”?

Zuckerberg himself has said “from now on, we will be metaverse first. Not Facebook first,” so George’s proclamations may not be wildly inaccurate. In some respects you have to admire Zuckerberg’s dogged determination to drag us all into his metaverse, whatever the (financial) cost. The layoffs late last year, along with posting a 52% profit decline with warnings that bigger and broader losses are to come in 2023, should be a big fat red flag that maybe - just maybe - the whole concept should be quietly put to bed.?Zuckerberg doesn’t agree. His response? Let’s throw more money at it.?

And with his penchant for surrounding himself with Yes men, there doesn’t appear to be anyone prepared to stop him on his one man crusade to seemingly derail his entire empire.

So is it tick tock for Facebook in 2023?

Facebook will undoubtedly continue to lose younger users in the West. However, you can’t ignore the global figures, which demonstrate that Facebook is still far and away the most popular social media platform in the world, and I can’t see that changing to any great extent in the year ahead.?

What does that mean for you? If you're targeting a 'younger audience' (say, 25 or younger) then it's worthwhile looking at other platforms and testing there as well as using Facebook. If you're targeting anyone above that then Facebook is still very much a place to invest and spend marketing budget.

Will Facebook get the 'yoof' back on side in 2023? It remains to be seen whether his Discovery Engine masterplan will be enough to entice teens and young adults back to the site. But - like boybands who reform in their 40s - it’s still the same, ageing loyal fanbase made up of mums and dads who turn up regularly and spend the money, not their offspring.?

But all this talk of TikTok and Discovery Engines is too much for this 40 something. I’m off for a lie down.