Meta remains massive, but its dominance is waning. Meta’s ad business will return to growth this year, after its first-ever revenue decline in 2022. Meanwhile, Meta’s US monthly user base (excluding WhatsApp, Messenger, and Oculus/Reality Labs) will continue to grow in 2023 after surpassing 200 million last year. The catch is that Instagram now accounts for all that user growth.
TikTok’s future has never been more uncertain. The app will have more than 100 million monthly users in 2023. That means TikTok’s US user base will be almost five times the population of Florida, the home state of Sen. Marco Rubio, who introduced legislation to ban TikTok in the US in December. Any measure to curtail TikTok’s growth would create space for other apps to gain share.
The continued chaos at Twitter will also cause shifts in the market. Twitter managed to stave off a user decline in 2022, but that won’t be the case this year. Twitter’s user losses will be mostly LinkedIn’s and Reddit’s gain, as Mastodon (an app similar to Twitter) is too complicated for mainstream users to use.
In crisis and chaos lies opportunity. As challenges continue, the social platforms will have a strong impetus to develop new ad formats and technologies—to the benefit of advertisers. Meanwhile, new apps will provide marketers with other avenues to reach users, such as organic and influencer marketing.