As we have learned over the past month, Meta lifted its free speech restrictions. Free speech is in and restraints are out. Meta is taking the same road as X. This means that the relevant differentiation of Meta’s brands, Facebook and Instagram, relative to X, is size and profitability.
Some users of Facebook and Instagram are rebelling and moving to Bluesky, for now. But, most users really need these social networks. Sure, there are other social media platforms, but nodes, connections, are the drivers.
From a brand standpoint, the more social media platforms become similar in terms of benefits, rewards, user values and personality, the more relevant differentiation disappears. The platforms become named but brandless. In other words, commodities. For example, LinkedIn used to be a professional job site. Now, it is a glorified social media platform. Lots of socializing; less true professional hiring.
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Regardless of the reasons for the changes at Meta, the underlying issue is, “Are Facebook, Instagram and X relevantly differentiated in the eyes of consumers?” Or, have we reached a great convergence?”
One Op-Ed piece in The New York Times said the Meta “transformation” is just its CEO acting out. This is actually not that important. What is important are the reactions of users. And, for most Meta brands’ users, the necessity of Facebook and Instagram takes priority over everything else. The Wall Street Journal’s interviews reveal that Meta is now abstaining from providing “brand safety,” that is, the ability of brands to run advertisements within environments that are free from “objectionable content.”
“Despite misgivings about the new speech policy, advertisers are unlikely to shun Meta. They (ad agencies) have grown dependent on its massive reach and ability to precisely target their ads, drawing on a trove of consumer data. Meta can afford some defections by blue-chip advertisers, as it is insulated by having a large base of small business advertisers.”
Advertisers are not yet fleeing Meta brands even though the restrictions on speech are lifted. As The Wall Street Journal points out, unlike X, Meta brands are absolute necessities. Both Facebook and Instagram are too big to ignore. Meta has “… nearly 3.3 billion daily users across its platforms, generating more than $152 billion in annual advertising revenue. This is a scale few advertisers can afford to ignore.” As one analyst opined, advertisers will not be making any changes to ad budgets as long as Meta platforms continue to perform, i.e., generate profit through sales. Shareholders are happy “… as Meta’s market value has more than quadrupled over the past two years.” It is unlikely that a shareholder revolt is in the cards.
Even if there were a shareholder revolt, Meta has been through this before. Although on a much smaller scale, X, too, is weathering an ad loss storm. The X brand still has dedicated users and advertisers across a broad opinion spectrum.
The rewards of the lawsuits X has initiated against advertisers are yet to be known. As Facebook and Instagram become more similar to X in terms of openness and deregulation of “safety” and “responsibility,” the less power the lawsuits may have. After all, the size of Meta’s brands’ reach far outweigh the reach of X. And, with fewer free speech overseeing, advertisers may just select the platform with the largest reach rather than avoiding the platform with the least safety.
What happens when social media platforms decide to compete as “me too” offerings?
In many ways, these “me too” social media platforms become just like mass transit.
Is this how social media platforms want their brands to be perceived?
Connections, community, going somewhere, getting somewhere, liking the experience but not in love with the experience, not the most trustworthy deliverable, coping with people who are loud and may communicate angry words: these are all descriptors of social media. And, these are also descriptions of mass transit.
As the years go on, with no social media restrictions, where everyone and anyone can play a role, social media will be a form of mass transit. This means that the major social media brands will turn themselves into mass brands or mass markets… becoming commodities.
We can rail against the subway and the bus as being unsafe and crowded and slow, but the facts are that we cannot do without mass transit. Same for these social media brands. Advertisers and users need the social media platforms.
As with mass transit, the system, the operations, the necessity is powerful. And, not just because of the connectivity. Mass transit and social media are socioeconomic and environmental drivers. Both have value for users. As Alex Pentland describes concepts in his seminal work, Social Physics, we can extrapolate and compare mass transit and social media. The surprise is how unbranded these comparisons are. For example,
Mass transit is flow. People in flux, moving, human traffic flowing from one place to another. Social media are flow; the flow of ideas, the networks of exchange. Mass transit is a social network, as well. Mass transit is a network that works to generate social exchange.
Mass transit is operationally efficient. Its infrastructure, in most cases, works quickly, reliably, and without much waste. The electrification of mass transit addresses waste as do electronic transit passes. Social media are efficient operationally as well. Social media are easy to use, a seamless ebb and flow of connections and disconnections and reconnections.
Mass transit is valuable. Mass transit satisfies user goals such as moving to and from work, to and from medical appointments, to and from social engagements. Social media are valuable in this same way as social media satisfy goals of social support, curiosity and usefulness.
Mass transit generates communities of peers: we are along on the train or bus together as commuters. We are traveling kith rather than kin. Social media are similar. Social media create groups of peers, kith not kin.
Mass transit is considered a given, a commodity. Mass transit, although given an acronym associated with its city, is essentially unbranded, essentially generic. Social media, although given brand names, are becoming more and more generic, as the race is for subscribers. It is the same for streaming entertainment.
And, then, there is the lack of trust. Data from 2020, indicate that only 5% of Americans trust mass transit. Trust does not appear to be a factor with social media, either. If trust were a deciding factor, Facebook would have lost millions of customers after its Data Analytics debacle or after a whistleblower revealed how Facebook made itself “sticky” for teens and youngsters. If trust were an issue for X, it would not have survived its initial post-Musk-purchase months.
And, if you use the definition of trust that equates trust with “an expected exchange value,” then Facebook, X and Instagram are trusted. These brands are expected to deliver the same opinion platforms and communities.
After all these years of differentiated social media, the segue to being like mass transit is unfortunate. Maybe this is the future. Maybe the future is just one large undifferentiated mass of mass platforms: the great convergence. Yet, Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn and all the others should focus on staying relevant and differentiated. If anything, it would make social media platforms more interesting.
How to stop the drift towards mass transit? How to stay relevantly differentiated? How to avoid the downward spiral of mass transit?
- Do not abandon the brand promise. Really. It is critical to articulate the relevant, differentiated experience that the brand delivers. Users want to know the benefits, the rewards, the character of the brand. Without a relevant differentiation, the brand will be a commodity, mass transit. Perhaps, as Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg says about Meta, the relevant differentiation at Meta is innovation. If so, let the users know. A brand promise is profitable. A brand with a relevant, differentiated promised experience generates brand value. Shareholder value is possible only if there is customer-perceived brand value.
- Focus on being better and stronger as well as bigger. How is your social media platform becoming better and stronger? Being bigger means becoming more familiar and creating more penetration. This is what streaming brands aim for: to be bigger. Being better means having a stellar reputation and generating overall satisfaction, where satisfaction is relative, i.e., satisfaction relative to customer-perceived competition. Being stronger focuses on brand loyalty, brand preference, brand value and brand power. As Facebook should continually be aware, power is not always related to size. Even when Dyson was small, Dyson was an extremely powerful brand. It was the same with IBM. IBM was the biggest, but Apple was the most innovative and popular. As social media should understand, repeat purchase is not necessarily a sign of brand loyalty. In fact, non-loyal repeat purchase is a threat to brand value. Continuous repetition of low price deals and convenience does not build loyalty.
- Do not let trust slip away. Trust is a precious asset. If you do not care about customer-perceived trust, well there is this: Trust is a source of organizational wealth. Figure out ways in which your brand can be perceived as trustworthy. Do not sidestep trust-building. So, your brand might not be a source of “trustworthy” information. Your brand may be honest about that; honesty is good. Openness is good. There are other trust building actions. There is no single idea of trustworthiness. Trust can grow from meeting expectations, from being reliable, from being honest by keeping commitments, by treating employees well, by being ecologically sound.
- Stop speaking only to Wall Street. Speak with and to users. Speak with and to potential users. Not everyone is reading a newspaper. Not everyone visits the business section of online news. Wall Street’s focus is profitability, anyway it can be generated. Financial engineering still has a lot of friends. Users want to know why they should choose your branded platform. Avoid focusing on analyst satisfaction rather than customer satisfaction. Brands are symbols of quality. It is unfortunate when brand owners debase brands to increase market share, step up volume or achieve any other number of short-term goals. Analyst satisfaction tends not to have the customer in mind. A focus on analyst satisfaction is short-term, not designed for the creation of enduring profitable growth.
- Keep your customers sold. Reinforce the brand relationship customers had when they started using the brand. Do not make customers feel as if they are trapped, the way cable companies behaved. Use after-sale communications for reinforcement. Streaming brands focus on making the sale and gaining subscribers but do not follow up with post-sale reinforcement. Focus on the fact that your brand is superior in delivering on its relevant and distinctive branded experience that the customer fell in love with in the first place.
These five actions alone will continue to keep the social media platforms relevantly differentiated. Avoid these five actions at your peril. Sure, having masses of people as users is great. But mass marketing is passé. As a business wave, it peaked some time ago. Mass marketing is a mass marketing mistake. Rather than resigning your brand to mass transit, continue to provide a relevant, differentiated experience.
Contributed to Branding Strategy Insider by: Joan Kiddon, Partner, The Blake Project, Author of The Paradox Planet: Creating Brand Experiences For The Age Of I
At The Blake Project, we help clients worldwide, in all stages of development, define and articulate what makes them competitive and valuable. Please email us to learn how we can help you compete differently.
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