For some months, we have been hearing insistently about the decline of Meta. A slow descent that seems to be destined to find no solution. Since the beginning of the year, the stock has even lost half its value. The alert is maximum and those who have lived the pre-Facebook/Instagram era to the fullest have no difficulty in thinking that it is a slow and highly anticipated death. Also because, in addition to the thud in the stock market, it seems that the number of users is also decreasing. Zuckerberg decided to bet on metaverso but the market, for the moment, does not seem to agree with him.
New strategies
Among the new strategies put in place there is a more massive influence ofartificial intelligence in the selection of content that will appear on our bulletin boards facebook and instagram. Therefore, there will be more and more content from strangers who, according to the platform, we might like. A rather dangerous game, if only for the polarization of thought – and therefore of consensus – manipulated by partial information. Increasingly impenetrable social bubbles, potentially usable for the use and consumption of those seeking approval. And while Sparta weeps, Athens – in spite of the predictions – not even too softly laughs.
It’s the TikTok era
Last year, TikTok has reached the seventh place of the ranking of social media platforms by number of users with even 1 billion subscribers. In October 2021 it was awarded the title of most downloaded app in the world, with over 57 million downloads. And hello to anyone who thinks it’s a social network for very young time wasters. Everything lands on the platform, even something good.
Something good
#BookTok (virtual space dedicated to reading) is proof of this. On the social media that is popular among young people there is music, poetry, entertainment, news, insights, politics and, obviously, a bit of rubbish that depends on the critical ability of the viewer to differentiate. Then there is the virality that Facebook is no longer able to generate. Just think about I belong to you by Ambra Angiolini who, after her performance on the X-Factor stage on 8 December last, after 29 years has returned to being a catchphrase in a flash.
The ‘It’s not Rai’ phenomenon
It was the 90s when a just fifteen-year-old Ambra Angiolini, starlet of the show at the time It’s not Rai, broke through the ceiling of 100,000 copies in one week. The consecration of a teen idol. After nearly thirty years, I belong to you it became a hit again. After the performance on TV, in a few hours TikTok was literally invaded by young people (and not only) grappling with the attempt to emulate the presenter.
And trend topic which follows that of Wednesday Addams that has mandate in tilt TikTok in every corner of the globe. Famous faces from show business also replicated Ortega’s dance. Lady Gaga first.
The tutorial of I belong to youon the other hand, even ended up in hospital wards played by Amber Angiolini in person in an attempt to give relief to the pain of a young woman admitted to the San Raffaele in Milan.
The theorem is simple: word of mouth no longer passes from mouth to mouth but from TikTok to TikTok and a few clicks are enough – done right – to climb rankings, go viral and reach a huge number of people. Communicators or aspiring communicators catch up, if only to try to converse with the language of Generation Z which, whether we like it or not, is very different from how we had hoped to be able to design it.