Meta's paid plans rolled out across the EU, Twitter's slump in 12 months, LinkedIn hits 1 BN users and cleans up, Whatagraph updates and 🤫🎁

Welcome to the November issue of Summarized, a marketing newsletter by Whatagraph, where we share our latest articles, case studies, top news from the digital marketing world, and platform updates each month.

Meta rolling out paid, ad-free plans to users across the EU

Over the last week, many Meta's social applications reported seeing pop-up messages forcing them to keep using Facebook or Instagram for free in exchange for access to their advertising data or switching to a paid plan. With the current pricing of up to 13 EUR a month (if purchased in the mobile apps), many users criticize the new policy due to the price being too high or noting Facebook's earlier claims that it is and would always remain free.

Many marketing experts, in turn, claim that introducing paid plans to EU users is not really a way to comply with European regulations but a way to bypass them again, showing that users prefer to use the apps for free rather than keep the privacy of their data. Quoting directly from a press release on Meta.com:

We believe in a free, ad-supported internet – and will continue to offer people free access to our personalised products and services regardless of income.

Twitter's value discussed a year after Musk's takeover

One year after Elon Musk's Twitter acquisition, the value of the company (shared by Musk himself with his employees) has dropped by 55% from the original purchase price and is now estimated at 19 BN USD. X's monthly users number also went down by 15% (18% in the U.S.) between September 2022 and September 2023; however, Elon Musk has repeatedly disparaged Twitter’s former methodology for reporting users.

Advertising spending on the new platform slumped even more, with U.S. ad spending by major ad agencies between September 2022 and August 2023 dropping by 54%, which Musk blames on the Anti-Defamation League and their claims that X allowed hate speech to flourish on the platform.

Despite unfavorable numbers, X's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, shared a celebratory blog post praising results achieved within one year under the new leadership, as did the official X account, sharing the platform's future goal to become "the coolest and most enjoyable place on the internet".

LinkedIn hitting 1 BN user mark, cleaning up some content on the platform

On November 1st, LinkedIn reported reaching 1 billion users worldwide, 80% of which originate from countries outside of the United States, showing its global appeal and reach. As reported by Reuters , paid platform users will soon benefit from additional AI-powered features, assisting them in their job search.

As reported by many social media experts, LinkedIn has also started to (finally) remove content created with the use of features that are no longer supported by the platform. Profile videos are currently being deleted from the platform, and native carousel posts will also disappear next month (fear not; however, all PDF carousels remain safe!).

What's new at Whatagraph?

• Apart from our latest Tik-Tok integration that we covered in the October edition, we have also implemented some visual changes in Whatagraph that make our users' experience more smooth and consistent across the platform.
• There were also some changes introduced to the Shared Reports feature, making them better aligned with the needs of their end-users. For example, it's now possible to sort column data by metrics and dimensions, as well as to save shared reports in .xls format, which allows combining them with their recipients' own reporting. All changes can be, as usual, tracked in our Changelog on Canny.
• Next week, we'll be launching something special for our new and existing clients, so stay tuned and follow our page so you don't miss it! 🤫

That's all for this month! If you enjoyed this issue, please follow us on LinkedIn and stay subscribed to the Summarized to receive more updates in the future.

The Whatagraph Team