We’ve seen it before, and we’ll see it again; the recent boycott of Facebook is #trending. You only have to look at the usage levels of #facebookboycott or #boycottfacebook to see that people are angry – over the last 2 years there's been 80K mentions, with 24K of those occurring in June 2020.

The difference this time is it's the advertising money at Facebook's core at stake. It’s brands, not users, who are being asked to step away from the platform and #stophateforprofit. Coca-Cola, Starbucks and Unilever are among those who have committed to pausing their Facebook advertising spend for the month of July (yeah, that should do it…) with others reconsidering their longer-term commitments.

This doesn’t just affect Facebook’s business, it also opens up interesting questions about the way all brands communicate with their consumers. Brand interaction on Facebook is driven by media spend; if you don’t put paid support behind your posts, then very few people will see your content. On average, less than 6% of a brand’s audience will see their organic posts.

At Dare, we work with a number of brands who are sceptical about dipping their toes into Facebook’s paid media waters. Now seems like the perfect opportunity for us to help them measure their consumer engagement rates against their competitors (providing they’re also joining the boycott) without the skew of paid media spend. It’s an interesting time, and we’re looking forward to monitoring the impact this will have moving forward.