As you’re no doubt aware, Meta is defending itself against an FTC antitrust case at the moment, which has seen Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg face several days of questioning in a federal court, in regards to the company’s acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp, and is motivations in buying up potentially competing apps.
And most of what’s been shared is information we already knew: Meta purchased Instagram because it saw opportunity to expand the app; Meta tried to acquire Snapchat back in 2013 (and again in 2016); TikTok has emerged as a serious threat to Meta’s overall business.
All of this is stuff that’s been discussed publicly for some time, and overall, it’s difficult to see how the FTC will be able to make the case that Meta has a monopoly over the social media and broader digital marketing space, given the business scope of key competitors.
But there have also been some points of note shared which do relate to broader trends, and understanding how Meta’s business is traveling.
For example, Zuckerberg has admitted that Facebook is losing out to other apps in terms of time spent.
As reported by The Information:
“Facebook’s and Instagram’s share of the amount of time people spend on social media apps has “gone down meaningfully,” Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg testified on Wednesday, saying that “a lot of the interaction” people have directly with their friends has shifted to messaging apps.”
The latter part here is nothing new, as we’ve covered the broader shift to messaging pretty extensively.
But the admission that time spent on Facebook and IG is in decline is a significant note, on an element that Meta has generally avoided discussing.
Back in the day, Meta used to regularly share updates on the amount of time users were spending in its apps, reporting, for example, in 2016 that users were spending more than 50 minutes per day, on average, using Facebook, Instagram, and Messenger.
But after that update, Meta stopped reporting these figures. Which likely suggests that the amount of time spent in its apps hasn’t increased significantly ever since.
That doesn’t mean that Facebook or IG aren’t popular, as both have billions of users, but over time, anecdotally, and based on external research, the indicators suggest that people are spending a lot less time in each app, while TikTok usage continues to rise.
According to a report published earlier this year by Guggenheim Partners, using data from Apptoptia, American TikTok users now spend an average of 108 minutes per day in the app, while Facebook users are active for 63 minutes per day on average. On Instagram, that’s down to 48 minutes.
The figures here still seem high, based on the amount of users these apps have, with the average spread across people who only log in to check on people’s birthdays, and those who scroll endlessly through the app. But as a comparative measure, this data suggests that people are now spending almost twice as much time scrolling on TikTok as they are on Facebook.
And that’s after Facebook saw increases in usage over the past couple of years, as it’s injected more and more AI-recommended Reels into user feeds.
Meta hasn’t shared any specific numbers, but it is interesting to note Zuckerberg’s statement here, that both apps have seen “meaningful” reductions in overall engagement.
Another point of note from Zuckerberg’s testimony is that he once suggested that they could erase all users’ social graphs in order to reinvigorate Facebook engagement.
Which actually makes some sense. Over time, people’s social graphs have become so cluttered, because they’ve followed every brand page, every fan profile, they’ve accepted friend requests from everybody that they went to school with or worked with, whether they’re interested in hearing about them or not.
A refresh could actually improve the relevance of your notifications, and the platform’s algorithms, which would make it an even more engaging experience moving forward.
Meta obviously didn’t go with this idea, but with Zuckerberg talking about getting back to “OG Facebook” of late, I wonder if this might be something worth revisiting.
As noted, the FTC versus Meta case is currently being heard in federal court, and could go on for up to two months. And right now, based on publicly shared evidence, it seems unlikely that the outcome will end up going against Meta, and forcing it to sell off IG and WhatsApp.
