Meta: Should I Stay or Should I Go?
A growing number of people are choosing to opt-out, delete, or begin an indefinite break from Meta’s Facebook, Instagram and other social media apps. We see you, and we support you!
We’re also very aware that many of our peers, friends and followers who are making that personal choice to leave Meta can’t make that same decision on behalf of the organizations they work for. For those of you feeling that tension, we hope this post can give some pragmatic advice for the present.
“It’s much harder to imagine solutions to problems than it is to imagine problems.”
— Danny Hillis
TL; DR: A healthy and growing email list has never been more valuable.
If Your Nonprofit is Staying on Meta:
Keep speaking with your community. They follow you because they care about the work you do and the change you’re making in the world. You might be one of a few sources of hope, inspiration, and joy in their feeds. They may need your voice now more than ever.
Encourage followers to subscribe to your email list. Develop a compelling signup offer or lead magnet, and a multi-step welcome series. Feature or pin the post about email signups on your feeds, highlight the Story on your Instagram profile, and put an email signup link in your bio.
Review, update, or create your organization’s community standards for what is or is not acceptable on your public social media communities. And if you are making any major changes to your external standards, then you may want to check if any updates are needed for your internal social media and technology policies, or long-term strategic plans for fundraising and communications.
Don’t hesitate to block someone when you receive unwanted engagement on your page. Will that person come back with a different account? Probably. But you’ll expend far less energy and save more of your precious time by blocking and moving on rather than trying to win them over or issuing warnings.
Consider layering in a private Facebook group or WhatsApp community if your primary interest is communicating with a core audience rather than reaching new ones. The upside is that you may be able to cultivate a safer, closed space. Two downsides are that you won’t have the organic reach of a public page for growing your community, and that you will have significantly more work moderating the group.
If your nonprofit regularly boosts content to reach more of your followers (because organic reach only delivers your posts to a small fraction of followers) be sure you select “People who like your Page” as the audience when configuring your ad settings. The default selection will be “Advantage+ audience” which is Meta’s AI-powered ad targeting technology that will push content beyond your followers.
Reallocate some portion of the time you spend on Facebook or Instagram toward another platform. That might be an under-utilized LinkedIn page, or creating accounts on BlueSky, Substack, or Pinterest. You might also try adding lead generation (email signup) ads into your Google Ads Grant and paid Google Ads mix.
If Your Nonprofit is Leaving Meta:
While there are many reasons to leave, in the advice below we’re assuming that you’re leaving Meta for ethical reasons.
Keep in mind that Meta owns Facebook, Instagram, Threads, WhatsApp, and Oculus VR. Be sure to apply your exit strategy consistently across these.
Go inactive, but don’t delete your organization’s account entirely. This way you can hold on to your username, and when people come looking for you in the future on these platforms you can point them in the right direction. Create and pin a post that lets people know where to find you. Here’s an example of this by NTEN who stopped posting on Facebook and Instagram back in July 2020.
Remove any Meta Dataset (formerly known as Meta Pixel) and/or Meta Conversions API from your website code. This will effectively disconnect the flow of data from your website to Meta’s servers. Make sure to also disconnect the pixel from any other platforms like an email marketing system, advertising platform, database, CRM, or scheduling tool like Hootsuite.
Reduce your page admin users down to only your single, organization-owned account. If your page currently only has personal accounts attached as admins, then now is the time to create a new account connected to a generic work email account and transfer ownership there. Be sure to do this for Facebook Business Suite, Adverts Manager, and Business Portfolio.
Uninstall the apps from your company devices. This limits another stream of data that Meta accumulates and monetizes. If staff or volunteers have used personal devices for posting, confirm that they no longer have page management access.
Lean into the platforms where you’re staying. If they’ve been somewhat of an afterthought before, take the time to brush up on what the newest features are and what’s likely to drive engagement. If you plan on doing any paid ads there, you may need to create a business or advertising account in addition to your profile and install a pixel into your website code so that you can begin building up warm audiences for future campaign targeting.
Add at least two new social channels into your mix. You don’t have to go overboard there, but by at least setting up the accounts and cross-posting there you’ll be ready to welcome people who have left Meta looking for a new online community. Some non-Meta options include:
Substack: Best known as a platform for content creators wanting to monetize articles and email newsletters, Substack also has a “feed” for short-form content, and you aren’t required to paywall any of your longer posts. You don’t need to replace your current email marketing platform with Substack, but you will want to plan for how to keep the two lists in sync.
LinkedIn: If you’ve primarily used this for hiring and ad hoc updates, then think of this like a new platform. Reintroduce yourself and let your organization’s personality shine. LinkedIn is owned by Microsoft.
BlueSky: Similar look and vibe to pre-2022 Twitter. The platform was invite-only until February 2024, and has since grown to over 20 million users. BlueSky is incorporated as a “benefit corporation” and the largest shareholder is CEO Jay Graber.
Pinterest: The image-first channel that still has a healthy active user base. User’s feeds are nearly all images but once expanded you can include descriptions and links, and users can add comments. Pinterest also has a suite of advertising tools including their Pinterest Tag for targeting and tracking. Pinterest is a publicly traded company.
There are others, of course. TikTok (although not without it’s own troubles), WeChat, Snapchat, etc. And if you have the skills and capacity to produce audio and video content you could venture into podcasting or YouTube.
That Funny Feeling
We hope this is helpful. But it feels unfinished and unresolved.
I think that’s because humanity’s entanglement with technology runs far deeper than our relationship status with Meta or X.
Microsoft is re-opening Three Mile Island, a literal nuclear power plant and site of the worst nuclear disaster in US history, with an exclusive 20-year agreement to power their AI data centers.
Google and Amazon’s Project Nimbus is reportedly used to target civilians through pervasive surveillance in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A US federal judge ruled that Google Search is an illegal monopoly, and they’re headed to court in a class-action lawsuit for making false claims about privacy controls and data collection on mobile phones.
Apple is under criminal investigation in Europe for the use of Congolese conflict minerals in their supply chain, and over a decade of human rights abuses have been documented in their manufacturing process, particularly in China and increasingly in India in recent years.
You could cancel your Amazon account, but don’t expect it to hurt their bottom line because Amazon earns most of their profit from AWS, their web services line of business. Salesforce, Canva, Netflix, Sony, Starbucks and Adobe use AWS, which means if you use any of these services then you’re using AWS as well.
And do you love a good Ball Mason Jar? That’s not the only thing Ball Corporation makes. Ball Aerospace was a wholly owned subsidiary of theirs until it was sold to the UK’s largest weapons manufacturer in 2024 for $5.6 billion in cash. Ball specializes in laser communication systems for infantry drones, and spacecraft technology with military applications.
We could go on, but won’t. Because it’s bleak and suffocating to dwell on it for too long.
But for the time being, we’re willing to put in the hard work of imagining solutions.
We want to help build stronger communities, and help the people and organizations that are committed to doing the work too.