You might have heard about Facebook changing its company name to Facebook. Or if you haven’t, don’t worry, in this article, we will clarify everything you have to know about Facebook’s new holding company, Meta.
We are going to mention also what this rebrand means if you are doing marketing on Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp or any other Meta products.
What is Meta (the company)?
Meta is the new rebranded name of Facebook, the global social media and VR company founded by Mark Zuckerberg, traded publicly on the NASDAQ exchange. The Meta rebrand was announced on 28 October, 2021 by the founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg himself.
Meta is now the holding company of the most popular social media platforms in the world, Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp.
It is a similar move to what Google did in 2015 when they created a holding company, called Alphabet Inc, that is a holding company of all of their products, and platforms, Google, Youtube, and other not specifically internet-related products.
Meta comes from the greek world μετα-, meta-, meaning “after” or “beyond”) is a prefix meaning “more comprehensive” or “transcending.”.
Why did Facebook change its name to Meta?
Facebook has changed its Meta party because it highlights the strategic future of the company. One of their main new products is the Metaverse, the name for a shared online 3D virtual space. Facebook is betting heavily on the emergence of virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) and the Metaverse will be the main platform for this new world – at least that is what they hope for.
More skeptical people suggest that it was rather a PR move than a strategic rebrand as the Facebook brand got so much negative press in the last couple of years that a rebrand was necessary.
Some other skeptics suggest that is also a move that might make it more difficult in the future to break up the company. It might be a rational move when we consider the breaking up tech monopolies chatter and the increasing public and political attention on Facebook.
What is Meta For Business?
Meta For Business is all the advertising services Meta provides for small businesses. Currently, it is mostly Facebook advertising that also includes any advertising on Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp, on Meta’s other social media platforms.
What does this change mean to you as a social media marketer?
Not much, at least it doesn’t seem like things will change in the short term. But we will update this article if we discover anything more fundamental.
Facebook For Business changed its name to Meta For Business but nothing really changed.
Meta Ads vs Facebook ads
Facebook Ads might change to Meta ads in the future, but at the time of writing this article, the Ads product of Facebook is still called Facebook advertising.
So anything you called Facebook + something, that didn’t really change. So it is still Facebook Business Manager, Facebook Pixel, Facebook page and not Meta Pixel, Meta Business Manager.
What products are under the Meta parent company?
The Meta holding company will hold the following platforms:
- Facebook Messenger
- Oculus (which includes all AR and VR products)
Where are Meta shares traded?
The share of the Meta holding company will be still traded on the NASDAQ stock exchange and the main owner of the Meta shares is still Mark Zuckerberg.
What is Facebook Metaverse?
According to Facebook’s press release “The metaverse will feel like a hybrid of today’s online social experiences, sometimes expanded into three dimensions or projected into the physical world. It will let you share immersive experiences with other people even when you can’t be together — and do things together you couldn’t do in the physical world.”
If this PR BS isn’t really easy to understand for you, we would encourage you to check out the event on which Zuckerberg announced the rebrand. They showcase a lot of previews on how the Metaverse will look like once it is really shipped to customers.
