It is no longer new that companies of all sizes and segments have invested in social networks to promote their products, get to know them better and relate to their consumers and to sell, but what if they come to an end, how is it your business?
No, there’s no need to despair and tomorrow you won’t wake up to the news that Facebook or Instagram are shutting down.
) However, there are a number of indicators and movements in the segment, which point out that things may not continue in the same way in the future and that alternative paths must be considered.
It will be the end of social networks?
It certainly won’t be the end of social networks and very likely, like Facebook succeeded Orkut, some network will do the same with the one that used to be – it’s not anymore! – the most popular in the world.
That’s right – the loss of leadership to other platforms – it’s the only certainty, it’s just not possible to pin when and which names will appear in the first positions in the near future.
At most one can make some projections, imagine certain perspectives and make some speculations.
One can imagine the future of the Internet, but there are more questions than concrete and safe answers.
But among all that is known, it is a fact that the different platforms have a lifespan and an evolution characterized by a rapid rise in the number of users, an apex and which is followed by its inevitable decline.
It was like that with the aforementioned Orkut and with all those that, like it, no longer exist.
In February 2022, the news of the first drop in the number of monthly users – those who access at least once a month – in the history of Facebook, was widely publicized. There is talk of a loss of 500 thousand daily users and after a few months, although less accentuated, the numbers continue to indicate a drop and adhesion to other networks, such as TikTok.
Another data that reinforces the trend, it was the first billion-dollar drop in revenue from what was Zuckerberg’s first network and which, added to the drop in the value of shares on the stock market, triggers an alert.
Probably anticipating this movement and trying to react, as well as trends dictate, the company underwent a rebranding, changed the brand to Meta and announced research and development of a metaverse platform.
But will being a metaverse-based social network be the solution? to contain the stampede?
It is necessary to remember that not only Facebook, but other social networks had important growth in the years 2020 and 2021, coinciding with the periods of greater social isolation resulting from the pandemic and that precisely with its cooling, came the negative indicators.
In other words, we are inclined to believe that, given the restrictions imposed, people have resorted to platforms both to socialize and to companies to do business, but with the return to normality, they are no longer essential , although they are still very important, as they were before the pandemic.
We must reiterate that it is not intended to create alarmism, even because according to Meta recognizes, in the words of its founder, this shrinkage in the base of daily users, it is due to young people, more specifically generation Z (centennials or centenarians) and who joined the Chinese “competitor”, for the type of content that is more attractive to this audience.
Likewise what happened with Orkut, the older generations must be the last to “leave the boat” and turn off the lights, which means that if your company still bets everything on Facebook and Insta and that is your audience, you still have two or three years to become an expert and start from the platforms that
Yes, start again and from scratch! Sounds like an exaggeration?
Suppose that among the exponents of the near future, we have something like the Clubhouse, an audio-based social media. What will you do with everything you know about Instagram in a network where the fundamentals are not images and video, but audio?
What lessons can you learn from the “end” of social networks? ?
The rapid and dizzying growth of TikTok, which is not even a typical social network, at least in terms of the characteristics common to most, reveals important questions:
Generations, persona and target audience
Generations Z (1997 – 2010) and Alpha (2010 – present) are the ones who are open to experiencing the new – the so-called early adopters – and those who have given the north when talking about trends in social networks.
Many companies have dedicated special attention to them, either because they represent their current consumers or will be so in a short time, but this ends up to some extent encouraging a movement that is not conscious on the part of the majority.
Is the persona or target audience to whom you have to direct efforts, part of these groups? Or do you just follow the trends and because the data shows that Chinese social media is the one with the biggest growth today, your company starts to act in it?
Therefore, learn to know who is the your customer and their behaviors.
Content vs social networks
Another factor is one that is more closely associated with the end of networks social media, at least in the formats we are used to, is that the prominence obtained by the new candidates for protagonists is linked to the consumption of content and not because they are and offer typical features of a social network.
Note that the difference of TikTok, are the short videos, quick consumption and theme linked to the user’s interest, regardless of the person who created it, which can be a total stranger and come from the other side of the world.
It is a recommendation made by artificial intelligence and not based on your relationship network.
Such a characteristic – short videos indicated by the AI of the algorithm – was copied and has been gaining more weight in the presentation of new content on Facebook and Insta, and even the interface has taken on similar aspects, generating open criticism from specialists, analysts, professionals who use the platform, influencers and users, regarding the “blatant plagiarism”.
Entertainment
Another relevant factor that relates to the previous (content) is that the growth of social media and which is reinforced by the still strong positioning of YouTube, is the function of easy and fast entertainment, independent of social connections.
These are characteristics of young people, who are not willing to invest a lot of time on content, consumption needs to be easy and it doesn’t need to be from someone he knows, but if it’s from the same group to which he belongs, it’s enough, even if it’s not essential.
By the way, this form of content consumption, in which the user chooses what, when and how much to see, even under inf luency of an algorithm based on artificial intelligence, has been the Achilles heel of more traditional media, such as television stations.
Fidelidade
Even in the scenario that these generations responsible for the advancement of new social media, whether their current or future consumers, you are aware that as quickly as they left the previous one and took over the new one, they will not hesitate to do the same when a third one emerges. that they find interesting?
The values and aspects that are generally related to loyalty to a brand, product or service, are less present and are less decisive for them.
Therefore, companies that have in this segment of consumers, their constituted and/or potential customers, need to be aware of the high dynamism they need to have to accompany them.
Privacy and security
Although to a lesser degree, another influencing factor is that people and especially governments have been The most demanding are the issues related to privacy and that once again has Facebook as one of its main exponents, first with the Cambridge Analytica scandal and then a major data breach in which 1.5 billion users had their data compromised.
Even if the company has claimed to have been web scraped and is suing the authors of the “scraping” in its database, if the data were protected as expected, the leak would not have occurred .
The truth is that similar social networks have a business model that is based on the collection and use of data for profit and that directly violates privacy aspects and even ethical questions about some uses.
How not to depend on the “end” of social networks?
Okay, but despite everything, it doesn’t seem reasonable for all businesses who bet and need social networks, just give them up, right?
What to do then?
There is no You have a single answer and even depending on the business, the alternatives may vary.
Starting with the persona / target audience to which your company directs its efforts.
From what we’ve seen, if most of your customers are baby boomers or maybe millennials, they also travel less and at a slower speed between one network and another, especially in the case of the first one, even though it is a user of one, it still is a consumer who values telephone service and face-to-face assistance, that is, the Internet is not everything.
Even if these are its main customers, the company can afford not to be worry so much about the direction of social networks, but you need to be an expert in dealing with analog natives.
It is also necessary to remember that there is life beyond the Internet and that not everyone is on social networks. Did you know that one in four Brazilians does not have any type of access to the Internet and three in ten is not present on ANY social network?
Of course, some of them are for mere socioeconomic reasons , but there is already a movement that gains volume of people who, even if they can, prefer to use the network sparingly and when absolutely necessary.
Last but not least and returning to the understanding of who the their consumers, building a wide digital presence means not depending exclusively on the decisions and movements of third parties, building their own digital heritage on their own websites, be they a blog, an institutional website, an e-commerce, or whatever is most convenient. .
Conclusion
Depending exclusively and/or to a high degree on social networks, can have severe consequences for business, when the end of them comes.
