Horizon Worlds: How Facebook’s Metaverse is disrupting digital marketing

Mark’s Zuckerberg Facebook’s Metaverse have undoubtedly taken the world by storm, specially nowadays with his new Meta platform Horizon Worlds for Microsoft and Oculus Quest. But does this new reconfiguration of the virtual landscapes can intervene with the digital marketing as we know it? We will dive in a little in that subject in this article.

Horizon Worlds: what is the Facebook metaverse

First let´s begin with what is exactly Horizon Worlds. The Facebook metaverse platform is a social virtual reality application that allows users to explore virtual worlds in an immersive and interactive way. Horizon Worlds have features live navigable VR spaces, ready to use VR building components and animation effects that allow users to create new immersive realities in VR.

Horizon suite apps encompass other platforms such as Horizon Venus (concerts) and Horizon Workrooms (collabs). So, Horizon World besides being a creator platform can also function as a shared space for multiplayer gaming.

With all these exciting new possibilities ahead, many companies are investing in metaverses, betting on the tool that might represent in the future for their business and professional purposes.

We believe this is internet’s next generation, along with VR technology, is slowly evolving to something more than mere entertainment, changing the paradigms of what we already know, and the rules and parameters of marketing and advertisement.

How is Meta changing marketing and advertising?

But how will digital marketing will look like on the metaverse universe? One of the biggest moves Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook metaverse have done is removing options for targeted ads based on sensitive information. As far as we know, Meta will remove options to target audiences based on how people reference causes, organizations or public figures.

This means that Zuckerberg’s Meta won’t let advertisers buy targeted ads for users based on sensitive information like race, politics, sexuality, religion or health. We must add, that these changes will also be made in Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and WhatsApp, as well as any other website and app that uses Facebook’s ad-targeting tools.

It seems as Meta as here to stay and growing strong each day, this means that digital marketers and advertisers will have to keep up to speed with the latest technological advancements. 

The first thing to understand is how Millennials and Centennials are a big target market, especially because these generations are into tech like VR and metaverse users.

Brands that are willing to invest into AR and VR and engage and experiment with new platforms will be in a much better place that those companies that haven’t started and will certainly be rewarded for it.

Marketing in the metaverse: how to navigate it

With these new parameters, SEO marketers will have to reformulate their strategies to fit into the metaverse. We present you some valid advices to increase your revenue:

• User-generated content (UGC): In the case of Meta, you will have to be aware of searches or discussions on products and services of your brand and tag the relevant user.
• Real-time experience: to be able to appeal to Metas users your brand should be able to create content with real-time experiences to attract users to your ads.
• Mix of different platforms: considering Meta is now the largest social media platform, if your brand appears in all their platforms there are more chances that the users will be able to interact with your brand.
• Accurate analytics: The metaverse provides accurate analytic data that can be used for your SEO/PPC audit and make changes accordingly.
• Increase target audience: a good way to grab the user’s attention and make them engage with your brand, is to release a digital version of your product, or creating a 3D video to show your services.}

Other ideas for your digital marketing game in the metaverse are:

• Parallel meta marketing within real-life marketing: create experiences that connect in with real-life experiences, or coordinate it with what your brand already does in real life.
• Immersive experience: there are many ways and tools you can use when advertising in the metaverse to make an immersive experience for your users, such as: virtual billboards, branded installations and digital events.
• Collectibles: your brand can offer assets of limited-edition items that users can collect in the metaverse.
• Engagement: for the user’s positive reception, a good strategy is to engage with already existing communities through influencer campaigns and UGC.

The metaverse will change many things in the way we live our lives, specially when talking about digital marketing. Horizon World and the Facebook metaverse is a good example. And taking into account that Meta is a big tech company, it will likely dictate and determine how technology will look in the future. So, an interconnected metaverse is something advertisers and digital marketers need to get on and be prepared to lead ahead of the competition.

We see it as it could also be a very exciting time for marketers, making the Metaverse a plain ground for experimentation.

In Stringnet we create digital experiencies

At Stringnet we create hybrid experiences for brands with interactive technology. We can help you with a creative strategy befitting the new world of the metaverse.

Contact us here. Let’s drive your brand to the next level of digital marketing and adverting.