Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last few months, then we’re guessing you heard of Facebook Inc.’s rebranding to Meta back in October 2021.
Ever since CEO & Founder Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement, numerous people in the social media circle have been wondering about both the short-term and long-term implications of such a rebranding.
Numerous business owners who heavily rely on Facebook’s advertising capabilities quickly became concerned about the effects that such a change might have on their ads.
Today, a few months after the major update was put into effect; we have put together this short article to talk about what has since happened to ads on the platform, as well as a sneak peek about what might potentially happen.
An introduction to Metaverse
In a live stream at Connect 2021, CEO Mark Zuckerberg introduced Meta. Meta is a company brand encompassing all of Facebook’s apps and technologies (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus, etc.).
The main focus of Meta, according to him, was to create a “metaverse” of sorts. There, people can connect, find communities, and grow businesses.
This is mainly achieved through augmented and virtual realities. Through AR and VR, developers, content creators, marketers, and regular users can seamlessly interact with one another. Anything from social connection to entertainment, gaming, fitness, work, education, and commerce are celebrated at Meta.
The word Meta itself is a prefix that means “comprehensive” or “transcending”. That is no coincidence since Zuckerberg truly aims to “go beyond” by creating a near-future virtual reality space where people can interact, connect, and of course, shop.
Will Facebook’s rebranding to Meta affect my ads?
If you’re here for the short answer: well, no, it doesn’t affect them at all.
The Facebook name change is mostly a cosmetic one in nature. Yes, it does have major consequences on the parent company, but it doesn’t affect sub-companies such as Facebook much.
Little to no alterations were made to the way Facebook itself or its ads work. Ads are still effective and somewhat cheap in comparison to other platforms such as Google or LinkedIn.
However, if there’s one thing that’s noticeable about all of this, it has to be Zuckerberg’s dedication to building his vision of the Metaverse. And we believe that the new technologies that this project brings with it will only help create new and exciting opportunities for digital marketers to target audiences in the future.
The combination of physical and virtual reality will help to provide a much clearer insight into the behaviour of audience members. That will allow businesses to reach their target audience(s) more accurately.
Additionally, both augmented and virtual reality act as mediums for businesses to show off their products, services, and brands.
Lastly, it comes as no surprise that more and more brands are jumping head-first into metaverse-related marketing strategies such as NFTs and virtual stores. This is perhaps an overview of futuristic advertising in the Metaverse world.
Detailed targeting update
On January 19, 2022, Meta removed some detailed targeting options that users might perceive as sensitive. These options are:
- Political belief, social issues, causes, organisations, and figures
- Religions practices and groups (e.g., “Muslims”, “Jewish holidays”, “the Catholic Church”, etc.)
- Sexual orientation (e.g., “same-sex marriage”, “LGBT”)
- Health causes (e.g., “cancer awareness month”, “World diabetes day”, “chemotherapy”)
Any ad set created before January 19 might keep these targeting options while making other campaign edits. However, starting from March 17th 2022, it will be no longer possible to use any of these targeting options in ads.
It’s somewhat obvious that such a change was made because Meta was under a lot of pressure from people and governments worldwide to provide a secure and more private experience. In other words, expect similar changes from Meta in the near future.
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