What Meta’s Latest Changes Mean for Advertisers

Alright, oh my goodness—so much happening right now. It's making my head spin.

Mark Zuckerberg recently made some really controversial announcements. Not really sure what’s going on over there at Meta—can’t even keep track of everything that’s been happening over the last few weeks or month.

One of the announcements: ending fact-checking and replacing it with Community Notes, like X. Now, I don’t know how effective fact-checking has been, but it’s still a questionable move.

The second is ending the DEI policy at Meta. I guess that’s a lightning rod in some places, but this is something Meta has normally taken a stand on—so it’s a little surprising.

We’ve also seen board and leadership changes lately that really make you ask questions.

Now, when you take all of these changes and announcements together, on one hand, it’s really weird timing. On the other hand, maybe not. It’s strange when you consider the instability at X. The whole idea was that Meta—and its new platform, Threads—was very different from X. Users abandoned X, myself included, for a safer platform like Threads.

Now, with these changes, why wouldn’t someone go back to X? Is it really that much different at this point?

The other reason this timing is weird is the TikTok ban, which appears to be imminent. Depending on when this goes live, who knows what will happen between now and then, but that appears to be the case.

So, strategically, it feels really stupid to be making these moves and alienating a large portion of Meta’s audience.

Now, it’s not weird when you consider that Mark Zuckerberg is somewhat spineless, alright? There’s an incoming administration in the U.S. Zuckerberg has faced threats in the past from that president-elect. He’s met with him. So, he’s likely trying to appease him. Who knows if this was some sort of negotiation—probably, knowing both people involved.

A lot of unanswered questions about what the hell is going on.

The main questions we have—as advertisers, as users, as marketers who are invested in this—are: What is the fallout going to be?

To analyze that, the first question is: Are users going to leave?

Yes, that happened on X. Now, those numbers are kind of fuzzy at best, but it seems to have been the case. It’s certainly not growing like it once was. But the question is: Where are these users going to go?

Meta has a virtual monopoly on the options now. We’re not just talking about Facebook. It’s Facebook, Instagram, Threads, Messenger, WhatsApp. It’s kind of crazy how much is included in what is now Meta.

Are X and TikTok really alternatives? Like I said, if you left X for Threads because you thought it was safer and more in line with your belief system, and now you find out it’s not, maybe you head back. But obviously, TikTok probably won’t be an option in the U.S.

I understand BlueSky—I’m even on BlueSky—but it’s not going to replace all these platforms. It’s not a mainstream option. A lot of these smaller platforms just aren’t mainstream at this point.

So, my prediction?

Yeah, of course, some people will leave. Some will delete their accounts. Some will come back. These things happen. This is a big deal—I don’t want to belittle that. And I do think some people will use these platforms less.

I’ve been there myself—I’m kind of sick of social media in general right now. It’s not fun.

The other question: What about brands and advertisers?

Yeah, some brands and advertisers took a stand against X. Many left after threats from Musk. But it’s not as easy to do that with Meta.

Meta is much, much bigger. There are far greater investments in advertising there. There’s probably far greater success there—most of us would agree. So, leaving Meta is a much more difficult move to make—especially if you don’t have a clear, better alternative.

That’s going to be really interesting to watch.

Now, my prediction is that yes, absolutely, some brands and advertisers will leave. Some will spend less. Some will call Meta out on this—especially if they spend a lot of money—and hopefully make some noise about it.

But I think most will stick around.

I can tell you firsthand—this is not an easy thing. It’s very difficult for me personally. I’ve been talking with members of my paid community about it, and we’re all grappling with this right now.

The other question: What can advertisers do if they want to continue under this current environment?

Advertisers might be worried about being shown alongside problematic content. That was the complaint with X. But it’s funny—we’ve never really heard that argument with Meta, even though it’s not like Meta has been free of problematic content.

That said, there are tools available.

You can use inventory filters. There are three sensitivity levels for the types of videos your ads appear in. You’re on a default setting, but you can increase sensitivity to stay out of the worst, most problematic content.

There are also topic exclusions. You can exclude topics like politics, news, religion, and spirituality from ad distribution. That might cover some of the concerns advertisers have.

So, there are tools to experiment with before abandoning Meta altogether—especially if you have a sensitive client or if you’re unsure what to do.

Now, my personal feelings on this?

Yeah, it sucks.

I’ve been uncomfortable with Meta for the last, I don’t know, five to eight years. And I’m really uncomfortable with this new direction.

It puts a lot of us—who are deeply invested in the platform and the company—in a really difficult position.

I’ve already diversified my distribution. I own my blog. I have my email list. I’m on every platform. I’ve done what I can. I control what I can. But I rely heavily on Meta. I can’t avoid that.

Meta is the central topic of my business. It’s very difficult to pivot away from that without starting over completely.

At some point, we’ll see where this goes. We all have to decide where our line is—what is too far?

Hopefully, Meta will come to its senses and make some corrections.

But this goes back to an underlying theme:

We are in really unstable times.

If you’re a business owner, if you’re an online marketer—we’re in unstable times regardless. But especially in those areas, because of everything we’ve been talking about—X, TikTok, AI—you name it.

So, my goal is to create the most stable marketing approach possible in terms of distribution and content creation.

How can we mitigate our risk?

I wrote a blog post about that. I encourage you to check it out—it’s a look at what I’ll be doing in 2025.

Go to jonloomer.com/stable.