Facebook Accepts It Has a Problem

Sahail Ashraf November 17, 2021

Facebook had an earnings call and Mark Zuckerberg brought up the issue of young audiences. It’s not a pretty sight, and he wants to change things.

Facebook had an earnings call recently and there was a clear sign that the company understands that it is losing some market share.

Beset by problems for years, the company has decided to address the demographic issue. This is all about the fact that Facebook has lost a huge chunk of it’s younger audience, and this problem has been building over years. So far it has done nothing about it, but Mark Zuckerberg discussed the issue during the earnings call.

During the call, he said:

“We’re retooling our teams to make serving young adults their north star, rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people. Like everything, this will involve trade-offs in our products and it will likely mean that the rest of our community will grow more slowly than it otherwise would have. But it should also mean that our services become stronger for young adults. This shift will take years, not months, to fully execute, and I think it’s the right approach to building our community and company for the long term.”

This long-standing problem seemed to be the millstone around the company’s neck, but it appears that Zuckerberg is ready to deal with it. Founder Zuckerberg knows that youth trends are critical to ongoing growth since they are the gateway to the users of the future. In order to remain relevant, Facebook is now making young users a higher priority, which may lead to significant changes to the app in the future.

Like TikTok, but not TikTok

Reels is great fun. You can’t argue with that. But it’s not TikTok, and Facebook is acutely aware of the video-sharing phenomenon. Zuckerberg obviously sees the value in Reels however, as he made clear during the call:

“Reels is already the primary driver of engagement growth on Instagram. It’s incredibly entertaining, and I think there is a huge amount of potential ahead. We expect this to continue growing and I am optimistic that this will be as important for our products as Stories is. We also expect to make significant changes to Instagram and Facebook in the next year to further lean into video and make Reels a more central part of the experience.”

This is good news for marketers. The fact that Reels is just not as popular as TikTok and that Zuckerberg wants to make more of it means that you can expect a huge marketing opportunity ahead. When Facebook gets behind something, it is usually very good at making it huge. Sometimes these things fail but you can be rest assured that the whole of Facebook’s focus will be on it’s latest project.

This means that Zuckerberg may well be directing his teams to make Reels bigger and better, and more importantly, more visible. If this does happen (and of course we cannot predict what the company will do) then you can expect to have a platform that you can make a real impact on.

If we were making a Reel right now in fact, we would focus on:

• Tagging. By having your content on someone else’s account, you increase your reach, as well as the possibility that they’ll share your content with their followers. These tips can be applied to normal Instagram posts as well.
• Using old Stories. It’s common for content creators to repurpose older posts and Stories to create 15-30 second videos for Instagram reels.
• Using your TikTok videos. TikTok can mean longer videos, but you can cut a 60 second video into two Reels if it makes sense to do so.
• Sharing testimonials. Why do your most loyal customers love doing business with you? Ask them to share a 15-30 second video. Social media reviews, especially video output like Instagram Reels, always perform well. And it’s a great way to establish credibility as Reels (we hope) gets boosted by Facebook.

Facebook is going for the younger demographic. Be ready for that and get on board before everyone else does.

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