👉 Background: Facebook - AKA Meta’s first-born child - has been struggling a little recently. Its user growth was fairly weak last year, and we found out its teenage users had declined by 13% since 2019.

👉 What happened: On the other hand, TikTok's downloads were 20% higher than Facebook's and 21% higher than Instagram's. Now, Meta's told staff the algorithm behind FB's Newsfeed will change to match TikTok's.

👉 What else: That means rather than prioritising posts from accounts people follow, it'll heavily recommend posts regardless of where they come from… Just like TikTok's famous For You page.

What's the key learning?

💡 In social media, algorithms are like a ranking system that’s used to help sort out content in a user’s feed. The ultimate goal is to increase your time spent on the app... and serve you more ads... and make more money 💰.

💡Historically, social media feeds from platforms like Facebook prioritised posts from accounts you follow. But TikTok completely redefined the idea of a social media feed by guessing what you liked based on your passive viewing habits.

💡 With iPhone users spending on average 78% more time on TikTok than on Facebook in the first three months of the year… it works. So, we can see why Facebook wants to turn the tables on its own feed.

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