Facebook after 20 years: USM Experts Offer Perspectives on Social Media Giant
Thu, 02/15/2024 - 09:32am | By: Van Arnold
Do people still “like” Facebook? Judging by its massive user base and exorbitant stock value, the answer would seem a resounding “yes.”
Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. Mark Zuckerberg and a group of Harvard classmates launched the program as TheFacebook on Feb. 4, 2004, before changing its name to simply Facebook in August 2005.
The fact that Facebook remains a relevant, vibrant part of global society after two decades does not surprise Dr. Brent Hale, University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Media and Communication assistant professor.
“Not at all. Mark Zuckerberg and the early Facebook team developed a product that clearly resonated with the American public, and they have grown and adapted their products to continue matching the needs of domestic and global users,” said Hale. “Acquisitions have been a key part of their continued relevance, for example buying Instagram and WhatsApp, and so long as regulators allow Meta (Facebook’s rebranded name) to keep growing, they will continue to be relevant in our society.”
For those questioning Facebook’s popularity in the face of emerging social media options, consider these numbers:
- Facebook currently has 3.05 billion monthly active users and is predicted to reach 3.07 billion mark by the end of this quarter.
- 2.064 billion users access Facebook every day, which accounts for 68.11% of the platform’s monthly active users.
- There are 243.5 million Facebook users in the United States. That is around 70% of the country’s total population.
- Marketers can potentially reach 2.11 billion users through Facebook advertising.
- Facebook has a $1.2 trillion market cap value.
Brittney Westbrook, associate director for Marketing Communications at USM, acknowledges that she “was one of those college students logging in to Facebook in the early days.” An account holder for the past 18 years, Westbrook considers Facebook’s enormous reach when coordinating strategic marketing initiatives for the University.
Westbrook notes that in the past decade, The University of Southern Mississippi Facebook account has doubled its following, going from 50,000 to almost 100,000 followers while garnering 14 million engagements such as likes, shares, and comments.
“From a University marketing perspective, many of our audiences are active on Facebook, making it an important communications tool,” she said. “We’ve been strategically using the platform for the past 12 years to engage with stakeholders and raise the profile of the institution.”
What Zuckerberg envisioned 20 years ago was a means of connecting the Harvard campus community through a single vehicle. That rudimentary idea has evolved into a worldwide communications monster with users in practically every country. India leads the way in Facebook users with approximately 314.6 million. And get this: If India’s Facebook users were to form a nation, it would be the fifth-most populated country globally.
Since its inception, Facebook has not required a fee to join. The company generates revenue by charging companies for advertising space. If you had purchased Facebook stock during its initial public offering in May 2012, the price would have been $26.81 per share. As of Feb. 13, 2024, the price per share was $466.13.
Facebook’s advertising punch is not lost on Westbrook. “Facebook has become one of the most popular platforms for large and small advertisers due to its low barrier of entry and integration with Instagram,” she said. “Its evolving advertising framework has been a driving force that has shaped the entire digital advertising landscape.”
Among the myriad ways Facebook has evolved in the past 20 years, Hale highlights the move from a selective, invite-only platform to a massively successful global brand.
“Instead of simply connecting people, it is now a vehicle for entertainment, commerce, information sharing, and is one of the best data-gathering machines ever invented,” he said. “Additionally, the business shift from Facebook to Meta showcased a tremendous change in the company – moving away from Facebook as the core business and toward a collection of digital products. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger serve different purposes, different users, and get different development attention. But they all share in the same goal – growing Meta’s brand.”
Like any megacorporation, Facebook is not without its detractors. Criticisms include the outsized influence Facebook has on the lives and health of its users and employees, as well as Facebook's influence on the way media, specifically news, is reported and distributed. In addition, Facebook Live videos have oftentimes included acts of violence that critics contend were not taken down quickly enough.
Other complaints involve censorship policies, real-name user requirement policies, handling of user data, and psychological factors that can lead to “Facebook addiction.”
All of which begs certain salient questions: has Facebook gotten too big, or perhaps too uncontrollable?
“Mark Zuckerberg has appeared on Capitol Hill numerous times to speak to regulators about Meta’s size and influence,” said Hale. “Congress is clearly concerned about Facebook’s size, and it will be interesting to see how they continue to address potential tech monopolies in the coming years. While I am unsure if Facebook is ‘too big’ it is noteworthy that Meta operates three of the top four largest social media sites in 2024.”
From a user standpoint, the pros seem to continually outweigh any cons associated with Facebook. The platform remains so easy to use that even people who struggle with technology can master it. The general interface is very basic and easy to learn. Users can comment, send messages, or view pictures with just a few clicks of the mouse (or tap of the touchscreen).
Facebook users range from teenagers to celebrities to corporate CEOs to world leaders. Facebook enables people to reconnect with old friends and family members while sharing photos, videos, and communicating through direct messaging. Facebook also provides a unique marketplace to buy and sell all kinds of goods and services.
The behemoth known as Facebook shows no signs of retraction. Will it still be as viable, or popular, or perhaps even more colossal in another 20 years? Hale thinks the answer to that question depends somewhat on Congress and other regulators overseas.
“If Meta is allowed to continue operating at its current size, or larger, I could definitely see Facebook still existing in 20 years, though it would probably look quite different,” said Hale. “However, if the company were to break up, the path to long-term existence is less clear. That said, social media is a difficult space to predict, so who knows?”
In the time it took to write the previous paragraph, 400 new users signed up to Facebook and a whopping four million posts were liked.
There you have it.