Why did Meta bring Messenger back to Facebook?

Last June, The Verge reported that Meta was planning to merge the two apps. In December 2022, social media consultant Matt Navarra discovered the company was quietly experimenting with consolidation. He assessed this move to help Facebook better compete with TikTok.

Messenger used to be a feature in the Facebook application, but it was separated in 2014. At that time, CEO Mark Zuckerberg wanted to turn the messaging tool into a separate application to provide a better experience.

The reason Meta brought Messenger back to Facebook was to let users quickly share what they discovered on the platform via messaging without switching to another app. TikTok now allows sending videos via its built-in direct messaging feature. Therefore, even though Meta is reverting to the old way of working, they are still criticized as imitating competitors.

Before the situation of advertising revenue, the platform’s fishing rod decreased, over time, Facebook had to find all kinds of ways to save it, including copying the way of competitors. Before that, in 2020, Facebook launched Instagram Reels as its first real foray into the short-form video market, and then brought the service to its core Facebook app. Combined with an increased focus on Reels, the planned changes show how strongly Meta is reacting to the rise of TikTok, which has quickly become a legitimate challenger to TikTok. their dominance in the social networking market.

The decline of the world’s largest social network and the rise of rival TikTok has made many people think that Facebook is “dying”. The Meta representative has also reassured that Facebook will not die, in fact the social network is thriving with two billion daily active users.

Meta is also working to transform Facebook from an app that keeps users informed with family and friends to a platform of entertainment and discovery. The company has rolled out the Reels short video feature on Facebook and Instagram, but has not really been successful compared to TikTok.

TikTok had just over 500 million users globally at the end of 2019. However, by September 2021, TikTok said it had more than 1 billion active users. As of March 2022, Facebook had 2.9 billion monthly active users, but it’s been around for almost 2 decades.

From its original goal of connecting users, Facebook is finding ways to survive. Now, Facebook is like TikTok, just trying to keep users entertained and keep them on the app for as long as possible.