In order to keep up with TikTok’s increasing user base, Meta is shifting its focus to building a strong creator economy. Resources are being redistributed accordingly.
Threatened by the rise of TikTok users, Meta is shifting its emphasis away from news and toward creating a creator economy. It is also said to have transferred resources from Facebook News and newsletter site Bulletin to produce more video and entertainment content.
According to The Wall Street Journal, in order to heighten their focus on establishing a more robust Creator economy, Facebook executive Campbell Brown warned staff that the engineering and product teams at Facebook would spend less time on News and Bulletin going forward. Brown, who is a former journalist, oversees Facebook’s global media partnerships.
According to a Meta spokeswoman in a report that came out on Tuesday, the social network is constantly evaluating where to devote resources, and its teams remain committed to the success of creators and are doing even more to guarantee they can find audiences on Facebook and grow engaged communities there. The article further stated that the decision was not made by the partnerships team but rather at the product level.
Facebook News and Bulletin Creator
2019 saw the launch of Facebook News, which paid publishers including The New York Times and The Washington Post to aggregate their material. Similar to the Facebook Watch tab for videos, Facebook News is a curated selection of news stories that users may find as a tab on the mobile app or website. In June 2021, the subscription-based platform Bulletin, which aims to support independent writers, was introduced.
Tiktok Threat
According to reports, children and teenagers watch an average of 91 minutes of content on the Chinese short-video platform TikTok every day, compared to just 56 minutes on YouTube, which is owned by Google. This shows the change in content usage.
According to a Google official, the threat posed by TikTok to Google’s business is not simply restricted to YouTube. Other essential Google services, such as Search and Maps, are also being impacted due to a rising preference for social media and videos.
Employees at Meta have already been cautioned to prepare for a challenging second half of the year as the tech giant continues to deal with problems in its core online advertising business amid a deteriorating economy.
CEO and co-founder of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg’s remarks were reaffirmed by the company’s chief product officer, Chris Cox. The Meta executive emphasized that the company is in serious times currently, headwinds are fierce and its difficulties are unlikely to end soon.
