The year 2021 was many things – some good and, unfortunately, some that made it a spin around the sun that we as a society would rather forget. But one development late last year could have an outsized impact compared to the attention it’s garnered since the announcement: Mark Zuckerberg rebranded Facebook as Meta.
And Zuck made this decision at the end of a year that was undoubtedly the mainstream coming-out-party for cryptocurrencies, NFTs (non-fungible tokens), and the metaverse concept.
Here are the popular naysayer responses to these two topics:
#1. Mark Zuckerberg is a villain who looks like a vampire (not a personal opinion, I’m just referring to that famous paparazzi photo of him wakeboarding with a horrible sunscreen application that everybody in the world has seen). So who cares about Facebook and what Mark Zuckerberg thinks!
#2. Crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse are dumb or unsafe or silly or not going to last or just a fad or insert another negative adjective here.
There isn’t enough room in this post to delve into the specifics of NFTs or the metaverse, so I’m only going to attempt to do one thing:
If you are a business owner or stakeholder at a large company, this post was written to convince you why you need to change your mind if you believe #1 or #2 above.
Why What Mark Zuckerberg Thinks and Does Matter to Your Business
Let’s get one thing out of the way first: sure, maybe Mark Zuckerberg wears too much sunscreen.
But do you know what Mark Zuckerberg doesn’t do very often? He doesn’t bet his entire company on things that don’t work out. Regardless of what you think of Zuckerberg, within the tech space, he is consistently correct.
This is the single biggest reason I’m concerned for you if you don’t care about what Facebook or Mark Zuckerberg thinks. Because if you don’t care about what Zuck thinks or what bets Facebook – sorry, Meta – are making, then you can’t tail their actions with your business. Which means you can’t win big.
If you currently have a negative opinion of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, here’s what you do:
#1. Forget everything you think you know and everything negative you’ve seen or read about Mark Zuckerberg or Facebook on social media.
#2. Realize that Facebook has been one of a few dominant players in the tech space since 2005 and that Mark Zuckerberg has led Facebook through various changes and iterations, each time achieving success and, very often, changing the world in some way.
#3. Figure out how you can be like Mark Zuckerberg. Read everything you can about how and why he is betting on the metaverse and figure out as many ways as you possibly can to position your business or company to hitch its wagon to the metaverse, too.
Okay, But What is “The Metaverse” and How Can It Help My Business?
Here’s a thing that the most brilliant people in the world do: they view things through different lenses.
As an example, the following statement says several things, but it’s clear they’re all viewed through the same lens (one that is negative):
Crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse are dumb and just a fad; none of them will last long.
Somebody equipped to use different lenses with which to filter truths might have two thoughts that might appear to be mutually exclusive but are not:
Crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse seem dumb to me, BUT they are growing in popularity every day, and tons of young people are into them. So I’m going to figure out how to use these things to benefit my business.
Regardless of your personal opinion on things like crypto, NFTs, and the metaverse, I urge you to view them through a lens that allows you to see their potential use-cases in your business. Because these are facts:
- The metaverse may be the next great digital hangout for today’s kids (high school/college age), and indeed, their kids
- NFTs and crypto have many more use cases than just what you’ve heard on the news (that an NFT sold for millions and that Dogecoin crashed)
As with social media and many other digital marketing tactics – success is about being where your customers are at the right moment with the right message.
And in the coming years, your customers will be in the metaverse—will you be there too?
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