Neil Patel and a host discuss whether Facebook can grow beyond its trillion-dollar valuation. They argue e-commerce growth will keep marketers hooked on paid social despite iPhone privacy changes and regulation, while WhatsApp monetization remains largely untapped.
Today, we're going to talk about how big Facebook is going to get, how big we think it's going to get, because as of this recording, they have passed the trillion-dollar mark, and I believe they're the fastest company to get there in terms of age. Neil?
Yeah, the trillion-dollar mark is massive, and it's funny, a lot of people are like, their growth is going to slow down, businesses are going to be less reliant on them because the privacy setting that's changing on phones like the iPhone, And yes, that will affect their revenue, at least in the short run. But here's the thing. If you look at usage of these social networks, especially the ones they control from WhatsApp to Facebook to Instagram, their growth rate may be slowing down, but their growth hasn't been slowing down. And if you look at how more businesses are popping online, especially commerce business, like e-commerce sites, the reliance on Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp is just actually increasing even more. And sure, there are some roadblocks ahead of them, whether it's government-related issues or privacy-related issues, but just like most businesses, over time heals a lot of problems. You can navigate them. But I do believe Facebook will, A, become a multi-trillion-dollar company over time, and B, as marketers, we're going to rely more on them, and it's going to be harder and harder to get off the quote-unquote crack pipe. And I don't use that in a bad way. It's just, Paid traffic is like a drug. You use it, you get results. If you get results instantly and you're happy with it, you want to keep using it and spending more. But there's a point where you get diminishing returns and it does eventually, no matter what kind of business you are, it is hard to continually scale infinitely.
I just want to apologize for our background noise because Neil's in a new spot. I'm in a new spot too. I'm trying to get the sound dampeners and all that. Please bear with us. We're just trying to make sure we get the content out to you guys and make sure we're still delivering good stuff, but the audio will improve. We guarantee that. I think it's going to be— Facebook's going to be a multi-trillion dollar company because if you look at generally the FAANG companies, and I don't even think you should call it FAANG anymore, because I just feel like Netflix is not in that class as the other ones mentioned, but at the end of the day, we're talking network effects, right? So the stronger the network gets, the more valuable it becomes. And I don't just see it going away anytime soon. I do not believe that Facebook is a prime target to get broken up. I— look, you hear a lot of people talking about tech breakups, right? I think we're going to see something happen in the next couple years. I don't think it's going to be, um, as easy to break up Facebook. That's just my opinion. But go ahead, Neil.
Think of it this way. Everyone talks about breaking up Facebook, but yet the government approved their acquisitions of companies like Instagram. And they're like, yeah, Instagram's massive, look at all this. But it was Facebook who really helped. Instagram was already growing at a rapid pace, but Facebook took it to a whole new level. And with their power and backing and their user base, they were able to make Instagram even grow faster. And it wouldn't have been as big of a company if Facebook never acquired it.
The flip side of that would be that now you have, for lack of a better word, without getting too political, let's just call it, you have the woke people being like, let's— people are too rich, whatever, coming after them. So I think we live in a different time now where it's, oh, it's actually the people are expecting the government to go after after them. But at the end of the day, I think it's just, they haven't really monetized WhatsApp that much right now. So there's a lot to do there. And then there's Instagram, there's Facebook. And if you look at a graph, I believe the vast majority, I think it's over 80%, maybe 78% or something like that of Americans at least are using YouTube. But number 2 is actually still Facebook from what I'm seeing. And then Instagram is pretty high up there too. That's why they print money, right? Because they've got the attention at the end of the day. That is it for today. Go to marketingschool.io/live. That's L-I-V-E. Check it out. And that's our virtual and our live event. Learn more about it and we'll catch you later.
