Anything you can do, Facebook etc…
For years now, Facebook has owned the social media space. From its sophisticated targeting model to its algorithmic news feed, it has provided the benchmark for other social media platforms to aspire to. If you’re familiar with Facebook’s Power Editor, any other social advertising platform will feel reasonably familiar to you the first time you use it. If it’s good enough for Facebook you can be pretty sure it’s good enough for other social media players.
Borrowing from Facebook’s M.O. is standard for other platforms, but the problem arises for those other platforms when Facebook starts borrowing back…
Facebook Live video streaming is a great example. Livestreaming apps have been around for a while now, but the landscape has changed. Meerkat has not decided to pivot because it wasn’t great at what it did — it was! — it is changing direction because it can’t compete with a version of Periscope that sits directly within Twitters feed. The gravity of Twitter’s population and immediate reach gives too much advantage to Periscope in that head-t0-head battle.
Now bring Facebook Live into that equation. 1.6 million users carry a bit of weight! I’m not saying that this spells trouble for Periscope, but what it most likely does mean is that there is no longer room for another major player in the live streaming market.
New Social Media platforms need to identify a gap in the market, either one that Facebook can’t immediately fill, or doesn’t want to (yet!). Snapchat did this, and Facebook tried to pay $3 billion to get in on the action. The continued increase in user base along with the recent monetisation of that platform has made it seem as if turning down that bag of money was the right choice, despite what many (most) of us thought at the time.
But they must have known Zuckerberg would be coming for them.
Snapchat’s growth seems to have accelerated over the past few months, but if you look at what’s happening you can see a pattern that puts them on a collision course with Facebook. Snapchat’s Chat 2.0 made a great impact following the recent update, but one thing that struck me fairly quickly was that it was turning into something like an advanced version of Facebook Messenger — slicker video integration like Video Notes, for example, or the ability to minimise the video chat screen so you can continue your conversation while doing something else in the background.
Then Facebook unveils it’s ‘Chat Heads’ — the ability to minimise the video chat screen so you can continue your conversation while... Sound familiar?
I’m simplifying the benefits of the updated Snapchat platform of course, but the point here is that yes, the gap filled by Chat 2.0 is an improvement to the Snapchat platform, but it didn’t fill a gap that Facebook couldn’t or wouldn’t go after. And when you look at other Facebook improvements like Facebook Canvas and Instant Articles, you start to wonder how much we will see FB move into the territory held by Snapchat’s most unique feature — Stories.
Snapchat may have the momentum to keep afloat, but the message to any new social media platforms coming through the pipeline is that you need a USP that Facebook can’t just add to its existing platforms tomorrow.
Anything you can do, Facebook etc…
@ourkev