Meta has a message for the public: don’t forget TikTok and YouTube.
After Meta’s Surprising Settlement In a teen addiction lawsuit that cost up to $18 billion on Wednesday, the company is going on the offensive to shape the story with a series of ads on social media and in print newspapers.
The ads, which Meta began running as a paid ad on its own platforms from Wednesday, call on the two rival social media platforms to “join us in supporting teens.” The ad links to Meta’s website announcing the settlement agreement.
“We want to ensure that teens benefit from this new industry standard, but we can’t do it alone,” the blog post said. “These protections will only be truly effective if we work together with our peers – TikTok and YouTube – to implement the same measures.”
Meta placed an ad on social media platforms and in print newspapers, relying on TikTok and YouTube. Screenshot/Instagram
It’s true that Metas Instagram and Facebook apps aren’t the only social media apps under scrutiny for the way teens use them. It’s also true that Meta’s coverage within a year is a useful PR strategy full of legal battles.
Mark Borkowski, a British-based PR consultant, called Meta’s ads an attempt at “reputational jiu-jitsu.”
We asked PR pros, including Borkowski, what they thought of Meta’s latest move.
A potential win-win for Meta
“This is actually a very smart move on Meta’s part,” Sam Gauchier, a brand and communications consultant, told Business Insider. “They have put TikTok and YouTube in a position where almost every response benefits them.”
If TikTok and YouTube follow suit, Meta can take credit for the public pressure it exerted on the two platforms, Gauchier said. If the platforms don’t, Meta could benefit from seeming like the good guy.
“On paper, Meta takes a ‘shared responsibility’ approach,” says communications consultant Michael Draznin. “It is designed so that Meta retains a perceived leadership role in the industry no matter what.”
Motivation is in the eye of the beholder
An important part of Meta’s settlement agreement implements limits on how teens use apps like Instagram. Teens can use Meta’s apps for a maximum of 2 hours per day, access is blocked at night and they receive customized notifications. The apps will also add more parental controls.
If teens aren’t allowed to use Instagram for hours, where are they supposed to go?
Borkowski said Meta has “a clear commercial interest in ensuring that competitors inherit the same costs and constraints.”
Advertising dollars could flow to TikTok and YouTube instead, says Forrester principal analyst Kate Winick.
Meta said that teens account for less than 1% of total sales and that American teens spend an average of about 1 hour per day on Instagram. Meta will also pay an additional $5.3 billion — on top of the $12.7 billion baseline — if TikTok and YouTube agree to make product changes for teens and reach their own settlements of $5.3 billion each.
Yet perception is the name of the game in PR.
“If they had first taken responsibility, shown real humility and started moving forward with their commitments, I think stronger public pressure on the rest of the industry – and not just TikTok and YouTube specifically – could have helped them rebuild some trust with parents and the public,” said PR consultant Sarah Gooding. “Instead, their letter came across as self-serving and insincere.”
It will be a marathon, not a sprint
This isn’t the first time Meta’s reputation has been in hot water. It often takes time and ultimately substantial change to change public opinion about a brand.
Borkowski said “the proof is in the pudding” of how much Facebook and Instagram are actually changing.
Meta’s strategy is not a surefire path to redemption.
“Could it backfire? Of course,” Forrester’s Winick said. “We’re talking about a company that already has enormous public opinion against it.”
That said, the call for changes in the industry – especially by putting a spotlight on rivals – could force social media companies to move in the same direction.
Winick said Meta’s biggest PR win will come “if they can get consumers to stop and think and say, ‘You know what? It’s not just Instagram that’s the problem.'”
