Last week, Meta Platforms – the company formerly known as Facebook – announced that it was cutting its workforce by 13 percent – equating to a loss of 11,000 jobs. This, according to founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg – is due to a combination of slowing user growth thanks to competition and declining ad revenue in the face of a global economic downturn.

Just a few years ago – although it might feel to many of us like another lifetime – the picture was very different. The company had been enjoying a period of unprecedented success, which saw it add more than 100 million users each year just before the outbreak of the Covid-19 global pandemic. It would grow to 300 million users in 2020, when the global economy was locked down and internet activity soared.

This is the point at which Zuckerberg took a gamble that has yet to pay off – and that many blame for the problems he’s facing now. Zuckerberg decided that the huge rise in online time wouldn’t slow down and would instead be a catalyst for more growth over the coming decade. As it turned out, this wasn’t exactly the way it would play out – for Facebook, at least. The social network has added just under 50 million users in the past 12 months. However, this slowdown in growth is evident.

Even though the company is smaller, it would still represent phenomenal growth. But for a man who told Time magazine back in 2014 that his goal was to connect every human on the planet, it’s a worrying and significant downturn. Evidently, it’s also worrying for his shareholders and investors – the company is currently said to be valued at its lowest level since 2017, reportedly having lost close to $700 billion in value. That’s around 67% of the $1 trillion it was said to be worth at its peak in 2021.

So is this dramatic downturn in fortune due to changing macroeconomics, bad bets by its leadership, the emergence of more youthful challengers such as TikTok, some combination of all of these – or something else entirely? Let’s take a look at how all of these factors are affecting a company that famously started in a college dorm, went on to change the face of the internet, and is now part way through an even more ambitious transformation aimed at changing the way we live our lives entirely.

Were we able to get here?

Facebook and Meta have had their fair share of controversy despite its huge success. It wasn’t, by any means, the first social network to exist – Friends Reunited, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Hi5 all predated it. But it outgrew all of those by positioning itself as a mainstream communication offering – as ubiquitous as telephone or email – rather than a service for a niche audience, such as youngsters, professionals, or music lovers. Facebook became the …read more

Source:: Social Media Explorer

Author: Aaron