Just three weeks ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg expressed dire fears about the future of Instagram’s explosive expansion. He is concerned that this expansion will hurt Facebook’s core business. More importantly, internal data showed that when users move to Instagram, their engagement on Facebook “drops off a cliff.” This revelation has prompted Zuckerberg to rethink the branding strategy of Meta’s products, emphasizing the need to keep Facebook’s brand at the forefront.
Zuckerberg noted that making a big push for Instagram risked damaging Facebook’s overall user engagement. He was unequivocal about the dangers of this move to a more strategic approach. He cautioned that if this trend continued, it would lead to a network failure. All those new users rushing to Instagram could suck the engagement just as fast Facebook is gaining. He brought up the idea that their predictive models might be wrong, maybe even much worse than they were expecting.
Zuckerberg suggested a few ways that Facebook could reduce or eliminate the cannibalization effect. Most famously, he suggested including Facebook branding everywhere in the user interface on Instagram and WhatsApp. In particular, he proposed requiring that when users use such apps, they should be able to view “Instagram by Facebook” and “WhatsApp by Facebook.”
“When you open those apps, it would say ‘Instagram by Facebook’ and ‘WhatsApp by Facebook’,” – Mark Zuckerberg
Zuckerberg even noted that ensuring a strong connection between these products is key to maintaining Facebook’s brand and user retention. He stated, “We may even need to put Facebook branding in the chrome of those apps where the app names and logos are today to cement this relationship in people’s minds.”
Additionally, he expressed alarm at the likelihood that Meta might further implode in value if users, or their engagement, continue to leave. He noted, “That is, the Facebook network can likely sustain decreased engagement among some of its members, but if engagement among its entire population is hollowed out, that may lead to significantly worse outcomes than we currently expect.” Zuckerberg knows there are bigger issues at stake with sagging engagement. This is no longer an issue limited to Facebook, but rather, across all of Meta’s applications.
It seems Zuckerberg’s worries run deeper than the branding. He argued that the product development challenges we see on Instagram and WhatsApp today stem from their separate leadership after the fact. He noted the difficulty in designing consistent experiences among these platforms. He reminded everybody that their founder-driven approaches usually put up walls.
In an extraordinary email, he explained that the scary truth might be that Instagram would do better as a stand alone company. This notion, perhaps more than any other, indicates his understanding of Instagram’s special growth path and future in contrast to Facebook’s identity and mission at its core.
Zuckerberg further stressed the need to develop synergies between Meta’s apps. He proposed consolidating the voice and video calling functionalities across WhatsApp, Messenger, and Instagram. This transition is intended to provide a more streamlined and integrated experience for users. By bridging these platforms, he says, they could more and more be able to act as one unified network.
“What this suggests is that while we hope to grow two products, there’s a real chance we may be causing network collapse of the more engaging and more profitable product to replace it with one that is less engaging and less profitable,” – Mark Zuckerberg
Further, he noted that management had a real hard time expressing doubt about Instagram publicly, lest they completely gut the morale of their team. He lamented that such discussions could deter talent retention among key figures like Instagram co-founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger.
To end his thoughts, Zuckerberg had a bit of a doozy. He admitted to having a “non-trivial chance” that Meta would not be able to hold on to its leading market position if these trends persisted without being addressed.
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