What is ‘Meta’, actually?
Everyone knows what Facebook and Instagram are – well, more or less – but chances are you’re a bit shakier on the specifics of their parent company, Meta. Many, in fact, are very mistrustful of Meta – head into any pub and ask for opinions on Meta and you’ll get either blank stares or vague, dark mumblings about evil data empires and (a few pints in) arguments about whether Mark Zuckerberg is an evil robot or an evil lizard.
Why is Meta so mysterious? What does it actually do? How does its empire (evil or otherwise) operate? And how can you harness the strange powers of Meta for your business? That’s what we’ll attempt to answer in this article.
To get anywhere with this, we first need a bit of help understanding the Meta machine and how all its moving parts slot together.
The mystery of Meta
If asked what Facebook is, most people would confidently answer that it’s a social media platform. They might even go into more detail – ‘It’s a social media platform that people use to get into fights with Americans and complain about dog poo on the pavements’. What about Insta? Easy! ‘It’s a social media platform where people post filtered photos to make their lives look better than they actually are’. All in all, people not only know what Facebook and Instagram are, they also have relatively well-informed opinions about how they’re used. But what about Meta? What happens when you ask someone about Meta itself?
Most people will know that it’s ‘something to do with that Zuckerberg’. They might know that Meta owns Facebook, and they might even know that Meta owns Instagram as well. Someone extremely knowledgeable would be able to tell you that Meta is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger, and Threads. But beyond that things get sketchier. Dig further into the general public’s knowledge of Meta and you’ll come up with a lot of confusion, some vaguely-expressed suspicion, and several conspiracy theories of varied feasibility. So, let’s start understanding the Meta machine properly, rather than relying on pub myths and lizard-robot folklore (although we recognise that’s kinda fun).
So, what’s the truth? Well, as with most fun mysteries, the truth isn’t nearly as interesting as the speculation. In brief, Meta is the umbrella company behind the aforementioned social media and messaging platforms, plus a growing number of AI and VR products. Meta likes to describe itself as an ‘ecosystem’ of platforms through which people can share information and build communities. Which is a sweet way of looking at it – but also somewhat disingenuous. It’s more like a colony of bacteria growing and feeding on human data and attention spans.
Still, like it or loathe it, Meta is now deeply embedded in global society, commerce, politics, and so on. As such, if you want to have any kind of digital presence at all, it’s a good idea to understand how this ecosystem/bacterial growth works.
Let’s start with the nucleus of it all: Facebook.
Facebook – the ageing heart of the Meta empire
Facebook is, famously, where it all began for Mark Zuckerberg (or for the Winklevoss twins, depending on who you believe). It’s 21 years old, which is practically geriatric in digital terms, but it’s managed to stick around. Its longevity is partly due to its ability to update and reinvent itself, but mostly due to its vast usership. It’s too big to fail.
In terms of demographic reach, Facebook is by far the broadest and most wide-ranging platform in the UK. However, that doesn’t mean that you can just spam Facebook with generic marketing content and get results. You still need to think about the purpose of the platform and the audience you’re looking to attract.
As a general rule, people use Facebook for community-related purposes, activism (of a sort – you know, all those badly spelled ‘raising awareness’ posts that your auntie shares about some issue in Australia from a decade ago), and socialising. Unlike Instagram, which is very visual and aspirational in nature, Facebook can support longer form, more in-depth content – although images and videos still often work well here. Perhaps most importantly, Facebook allows brands to have detailed and transparent discussions with followers, which makes it good for community-building in ways that Instagram isn’t.
In short, Facebook is best for:
- Local businesses, community focused brands and services aimed at adults and parents
- Broad awareness campaigns
- Customer service and relationship building
How does Facebook fit into the Meta empire?
Facebook is the central hub of the Meta empire. It’s got unfathomable amounts of data at its fingertips, and a vast infrastructure that extends into almost every aspect of modern life. To add yet another analogy to this simile soup, if you think of Meta as a posh house, Facebook would be the foundations, the electrics, the gateway, and (very definitely) the CCTV system.
Like everything on the internet, Facebook runs on data. Understanding the Meta machine really means understanding how Facebook hoovers up and processes that data on a colossal scale. And, because it’s got much more data than most other digital entities, it has a huge amount of power and scope. Its data-driven algorithms quickly learn what people like, how they behave, and what prompts them to click. They then feed users targeted ads based on this knowledge. So, if you’re a canny business that knows how to craft and target content, you can very quickly get your ads in front of a lot of receptive eyeballs through Facebook.
We’re not going to go into detail here on how to use Facebook Ads Manager to make friends with the algorithm – if you’d like to know more about that, contact us for a free discussion, or check out our other blogs on the subject. For the purposes of this blog, we’re interested in the way the ‘ecosystem’ operates. So, the main takeaway about Facebook is that, as the largest and most developed entity in the ecosystem, basically everything goes through it.
To return to the house analogy for a brief explanation, think of Instagram as a rebellious teenager’s room. It may look very different to the rest of the house – youthful, vibrant decor etc – and some very different activities may go on there, but it’s still using heat and electricity drawn from the main house infrastructure. Once you start understanding the Meta machine, you realise each platform is just another room in the same very odd digital house.
Which brings us neatly into Instagram.
Instagram – the not-actually-that-radical younger sibling
Instagram is stylish, fast-moving and likes to pretend that it’s way cooler and more plugged-in than the older, more serious Facebook. But it’s all a facade. Instagram may have a more youthful vibe, but under the glossy photo grids and addictive reels, Instagram has the same goals, the same data, and the same information-harvesting practices as Facebook.
However, that doesn’t mean that you can treat Instagram merely as a different arm of Facebook. In usership and algorithmic terms, the platforms operate quite differently. Instagram is a visual platform that encourages scrolling and swiping rather than prolonged engagement with posts. So, its algorithm prioritises content that gets people interacting fast. Three seconds is the ideal attention span for the Instagram algorithm – it wants you to use one second to see something eyecatching, another second to tap the heart, and maybe another second to share or comment. And it wants you to keep going through the feed doing that over and over and over again for hours.
As such, you need to tailor your Instagram content towards a younger, more aspirational, fast-scrolling audience, with things like reels, snazzy UGC (User Generated Content), and easily-clickable shopping posts.
In short, Instagram is good for:
- Fashion, beauty, food, travel, fitness and lifestyle brands
- DTC (Direct To Consumer) ecommerce brands
- Influencer partnerships
How does Instagram fit into the Meta empire?
While the Instagram algorithm itself is working with different kinds of content, it’s drawing on Facebook to do so. The back-end architecture of Instagram is fully plugged into Facebook. In practical business terms, this means that you can curate Facebook and Instagram ads directly from a single platform – albeit sending very different sorts of content to each platform. Managing an Instagram business account is basically the same as running a Facebook Page. Same plumbing, better lighting. It’s another good example of how understanding the Meta machine gives you a huge advantage when planning content across platforms.
Blending – and differentiating – the two
Currently, Meta is trying to integrate Instagram and Facebook even further (this is something you will learn if you follow Meta’s doings – they have a compulsion to lock everything into Facebook sooner or later). They’re pushing cross-platform messaging, shared inboxes, and deeper account integration. This may seem like a strange move on the face of it. However, when you follow the data (ALWAYS follow the data with these platforms, because data is money), it makes strategic sense.
For a start, the more joined-up the platforms are, the easier it is for Meta to harvest behavioural data across both apps. This means it can target ads more precisely, and better targeting means they can charge higher ad prices. At the same time, they can bring all backend systems further into the main infrastructure, which cuts costs and (in theory) improves efficiency.
And let’s not forget the Evil Empire aspect of it all. What Meta really, really wants is for you to stay in its ecosystem forever, constantly generating data to feed the ever-hungry algorithm, which in turn shovels endless sums of money into the bank accounts of its masters (who may or may not be robot-lizards, depending on who you talk to down the local). It’s much harder for you to leave the ecosystem and hop to TikTok or Snapchat when so much of your digital life is tied to a single, centralised platform. If you share the same inbox, the same ads manager, the same login, the same suggested content, the same messaging features, and so on across all of Meta’s platforms, you’ve got much more to lose by leaving.
Does this increased integration mean that you can stop differentiating your Facebook and Instagram content? Absolutely not. Instagram is never going to be a pink version of Facebook, however tangled the back ends get. At the front end, the platforms will continue to attract different userships and prioritise different content styles. So don’t get lazy!
What about WhatsApp and Threads?
Don’t worry, we’ve not forgotten WhatsApp and Threads. We’re just not as interested in them. Meta has yet to work out how to stuff up WhatsApp with adverts (don’t worry, it’ll get there), so it’s not as relevant for the digital footprint of a business. And Threads, while growing, remains focused on social discourse rather than business. For the moment.
That being said, it’s important to be aware of the other players in the Meta ecosystem. They’re both plugged into the Meta machine (although WhatsApp is theoretically not feeding the Meta data pipeline. Or so they say), and they can both be used for business purposes from the main Meta platform. For example, businesses can run WhatsApp chat buttons in their Instagram and Facebook pages.
As for Threads, it doesn’t run ads (yet), but you can build business or influencer profiles on there very quickly. As it’s part of the wider Meta system, you can open a Threads profile and instantly import your audience from Facebook and Instagram. This allows you to set up a substantial digital presence on Threads within seconds. And ads are definitely coming to Threads – Meta never does anything without incorporating ads eventually – so it’s worth keeping an eye on it.
How can you make all this work for you?
By this point, you’re hopefully well on your way to understanding the Meta machine – or at least enough of it to use it without feeling like you’re being eaten alive.
Now the mercenary bit – how can you make this evil empire/ecosystem/bacterial feeding frenzy/house work to your advantage?
Here are some suggestions:
- Build a strong digital presence. Meta users can connect their Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Threads, and anything else that Meta comes up with in the future (the Metaverse is one to watch). This makes it very easy to curate a coherent cross-platform brand identity. Just remember to tailor your content to each platform’s strengths and audiences.
- Take advantage of the centralised advertising engine. Brands can run multiple cross-channel campaigns from a single interface, and have diverse data streamed directly back into that interface. You don’t have to hop between platforms and work out different data analysis systems to track campaign performance and draw data insights.
- Cater to the strengths of each platform. For example, use Instagram for branding and glossy optics, Facebook for community discussion, and WhatsApp for private, direct communication with individual customers.
What about LinkedIn?
Well, LinkedIn isn’t part of Meta (…yet…). It operates quite differently and has a very different audience to both Facebook and Instagram. We’ll be going into more comparative detail about Meta and LinkedIn soon (watch this space!). But, if you can’t wait, here’s a quick comparison table to help in your social media strategy:
| Platform | Main audience | What it is best for | Content that performs well |
| Adults thirty to sixty, families, local communities | Local marketing and broad awareness | Short video, simple graphics, community posts, groups | |
| Broad multi generational reach | Customer service and retention | Event promotion and practical updates | |
| Adults eighteen to thirty five, lifestyle focused consumers | Lifestyle and retail brands, discovery | Reels, high quality photos, user generated content | |
| Highly visual shoppers | Influencer and creator collaborations | Behind the scenes and aesthetic product showcases | |
| Professionals, managers, executives and B2B buyers | Authority building and professional reach | Thought leadership, carousels, industry updates | |
| UK knowledge workers across many sectors | Recruitment and employer brand | Case studies and culture focused posts |