Facebook changed her name has become the question in many lips today, so I am going to try to explain why in this blog.
Why did Facebook change her name to Meta?
Recently
Not quite long ago, Facebook announced the name change to meta, although this has left many asking what this means for the Facebook brand. I am going to explain here in my own opinion why they did and what this means.
The name change became obvious since Instagram, Facebook, and WhatsApp are all owned by one company, so it is just logical to group them under one umbrella and not allow one brand to dictate the pace and acceptance of the other brands.
This should be a business lesson on its own but I will leave this for another day.
Now, here are my 2 reasons why Facebook changed her name.
- To stay relevant in business
- To clear up their public bias and win some sentiments.
- To stay relevant:
In my opinion, one of Facebook’s greatest strength has always been going where the attention is. This is seen in their attempt to purchase Snapchat, and succeeding in getting WhatsApp and Instagram.
These moves has helped Facebook stay relevant over the 2 decades they have been in existence.
Old Age Syndrome
When brands get old, and with old age there must come tiredness. This is why businesses and brands must evolve over time in order to be relevant. This transformation can be in different forms, but it has to keep happening unless you fizzle out. Automobile companies have mastered this business strategy and I see the iPhone brand doing the same.
This is one business lesson you should take from this new facebook brand change. This was one of the reasons we no longer have MySpace, and friendster. These ones didn’t evolve when they should have done so.
And now recently, so much talk has been going on about NFTs and metaverse and with Facebook’s investment into occulus, I see this name change as a forward move to get ahead into the future and stay there waiting till the metaverse theory becomes popular. Bold move I must say.
In football it is called the offense.
Here’s my second reason why Facebook changed her name.
- To clear up their public bias:
Over the recent years, Facebook has received repeated bashing from different quarters on privacy issues. Especially in Europe and with apple. (There are quite a number of others, but I choose to highlight these two for now).
Lawsuits upon lawsuits do not help build a good brand, so again it is another obvious move for Facebook to change her name. This is so that if it is Face.book that offended you, then you deal with Facebook and not drag WhatsApp or Instagram into it. But this is going to be a tough task for the company to pull off. It is something interesting that we all are going to watch out for.
Coming Expectations
The coming days are going to be quite interesting on the social space and this bold move has definitely changed the narrative out here. This what having a big brand can do. One of the brand goals of any company should be not just to increase in profit but to be big enough to change the narrative in their context.
When you can change the narrative, then you have the market dancing to your tune.
These are my opinions.
Let me hear yours.
Let me know, what business lessons you have been able to pull off from my opinion or from the Facebook name change. Put it in the comments.
For more of my musings please check out ikwuagwuigwe.com/blog