Facebook is enlisting TikTok personalities like Khaby Lame to promote its metaverse after Reels couldn't create its own stars
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Palmer Haasch
Nov 3, 2021, 19:58 IST
CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook was rebranding as Meta.
Facebook
Facebook announced on Thursday that it was rebranding as "Meta."
It enlisted TikTok stars like Khaby Lame to promote its rebrand.
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Facebook announced Thursday that it was changing its name to Meta as part of an effort to rebrand the company. As a part of the change, it enlisted stars with millions of followers on TikTok, rather than creators best-known for their work on Meta's platforms such as Instagram, to hype up CEO Mark Zuckerburg's announcement.
The move speaks to a dearth of easily recognizable personalities known for their work on its own platforms and the company's apparent inability to recreate TikTok's success with Gen Z.
The company launched Reels, a TikTok clone for Instagram, in August 2020. At the time, The New York Times called it a "dud." While some creators have said the feature helped them grow on the platform, Instagram still hasn't captured one of TikTok's biggest selling points: the viral success that has singlehandedly built massive careers. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, said in May that he was aware that the platform was better at "creating value" for "established" creators, but that it was shifting its focus towards emerging creators going forward.
The company rolled out Meta-sponsored content from three TikTokers on its primary Twitter account, @Meta, on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday: Emily Zugay (@emilyzugay), Oneya Johnson (@angryreactions), and Khabane "Khaby" Lame (@khaby.lame), respectively. They show Lame, Johnson, and Zugay zipping around the metaverse, reacting to Zuckerberg's announcement, and turning Meta's logo into a meme.
Meta's partnership with young, popular influencers isn't particularly shocking. Zuckerberg said in a Q3 earnings call on October 25 that the company is working towards making "serving young adults the North Star, rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people" on Facebook. Per Zuckerberg, that means courting users who fall in the 18 to 29 age bracket.
A Meta spokesperson said the company partners with creators and makes content for various social media platforms in order to promote its brand, including TikTok.
As journalist Ryan Broderick noted in his newsletter Garbage Day, seeing creators who blew up on a competitor's platform through native features like TikTok's "duet" function promote Facebook's rebrand is deeply ironic. It also highlights that these major influencers - particularly ones with young audiences in the demographics the company is trying to reach - don't really exist in the same way on Meta's own platforms.
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While the company tries to shift its brand and court younger audiences for platforms like Facebook, it seems likely that Meta will continue to partner with online stars who primarily make content for other platforms. Still, bringing in a face like Lame's also serves to remind audiences of where he came from - and what Meta still doesn't have.
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