Let’s Talk About Meta

Last week, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg announced that the social media giant is eliminating fact-checking. In its place, they are choosing to rely on Community Notes, as X has done. We already know with certainty that when X—formerly Twitter and renamed X after being purchased by Elon Musk in October 2022—rid itself of content moderators, there was a significant rise in false information spreading and hate speech on the platform. This action at X has led many large advertisers to take their money and run out of fear that their brands would be negatively affected. Most arts and culture marketers did not (and still do not) invest paid media dollars in X. At that time, our industry wasn’t faced with a decision to pull ad dollars from X; rather we had to decide if our values aligned, permitting us to remain there organically. Some organizations left, some deleted their accounts, and some remained. Regardless of what your organization decided, one fact remains true—the X user base (~600 million monthly active users) has always lacked the gargantuan scale of Meta’s (Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, Whatsapp, Threads) four billion MAUs (monthly active users). Only one in five adults report ever using X (22%). As arts and culture institutions, we’ve never significantly relied on it to achieve our goals. 

So last Tuesday, when Zuck made his bizarre announcement that Meta would abandon fact checking to make way for free speech, collective outrage rippled through arts organizations. Likely none of us ever held Meta high up on a moral pedestal, but at least there was some platform commitment to truth and safety (including a financial one…the costs to Meta are in the billions).

Unlike X, Meta has been a marketing necessity for our industry for more than a decade. It’s an empowering tool for amplifying our missions through storytelling, and when paired with paid media dollars, it’s a powerful and efficacious media tactic that drives sales no matter the size of an organization’s budget. For many, it represents the largest line item in our paid digital media budgets.

So. What do we do?

Make Your Opinions Known

Personally and professionally, we are making our detestation of these policy changes known to Meta. Loudly. We encourage you to do the same if you’re displeased—see “Takeaways” at the end of this post for suggestions on how to protest. Before you say it, we know what you’re thinking, “What difference can my protest make when I’m fighting against the billionaire boys club?” But we must! Let’s not allow ourselves to fall into the habit of complacency, accepting bad decisions that affect those who are already the most marginalized. So—step one: raise your voices loud and make your opinions known.

Many have stated that there is already a lot of false information escaping (or being outright ignored) the fact-checkers at Meta. We’ve certainly observed some of that. Others speculate that perhaps Community Notes on posts spreading false information are inherently better than a comment war. The fact is, we’re going to have to wait, watch, and closely monitor how these changes will impact Meta platforms and how our audiences use them as Community Notes are phased in over the next several months.

Keep a Close Eye On Your Audiences

A logical step two would be defunding the platform (pulling our ad dollars) if these policy changes impact Meta platforms as negatively as the announcement suggests. But that’s not a recommendation we’re making (at least not yet). The unfortunate truth about the current social media ecosystem is that there isn’t a social platform with a large user base that is free from the shackles of capitalism and hate. Some of you are going to say, “What about Bluesky?!” We love to see what’s happening over there, but its user base lacks scale and opportunities for paid promotion.

The plain truth is that the people who buy tickets for our seats and admissions for our galleries can, in large part, be easily found and efficiently converted on Meta. At a time when so many in our industry are still struggling to build back audiences, manage budget cuts, and survive the shrinking power of the dollar in an inflationary economy—we don’t believe it’s fiscally responsible to advise our constituency to stop investing in Meta to drive awareness through storytelling and close sales with powerful, machine-learning conversions campaigns. 

A Potential Pivot, for Now or Later

If your morals and maxims insist you make a pivot in response to Meta’s announcement, one alternative we’re comfortable recommending is YouTube.  

In case you need reminding, YouTube can brag that it has the largest number of US adult users—eight in ten adults or 83%. It has the second largest user base after Meta and boasts over 2.5 billion monthly logged-in users (YouTube doesn’t publish MAUs, but rather monthly logged-in users). If you’d like to reach an audience similar in scale to Meta on a platform that indexes equal to (or better) across all key demographics, then you can decrease your Meta budget and increase your YouTube investment. You’re likely investing budget in Google properties already, so this isn’t that big of a leap. The good news is that you can access a user base similar to Meta with a similar investment, and Google Ads offers multiple campaign types that reach YouTube audiences through both video and image ad options. 

• A bit of caution: campaign types, objectives, and machine learning are different for YouTube and Google campaigns, so you’ll need to adjust your expectations; don’t start investing a ton in Google/YouTube and expect it to perform just like Meta. It’s likely to perform well but differently. Remember, if you move in this direction, you’ll need video assets with a strong hook.

Our promise to you

This is serious and important to us. We are committed to monitoring changes to monthly active users, consumer time spent, and performance marketing efficacy on Meta. If the picture changes significantly, we’ll be the first to tell you to invest your valuable time and money elsewhere.

Takeaways

1. Share your dissatisfaction directly with Meta. One way to protest is to participate in the “Lights Out Meta” boycott (1/19-1/26), which we recommend only if your organization is not in a critical sales cycle. 
2. For now, our recommendation is to keep investing in Meta if it has been performing well for you. 

“The saving of our world from pending doom will come, not through the complacent adjustment of the conforming majority, but through the creative maladjustment of a nonconforming minority.”
— Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.