Ben Joe, Vice President, Southeast Asia and Emerging Markets, Meta, speaks at an event in HCM City on June 13. — Photo courtesy of the company

HCM CITY — Meta will focus on three priority areas in 2023 that will help drive business and industry growth in Việt Nam, including video growth, particularly Reels, the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for businesses and building better business ROI through business messaging.

“Meta platforms empower diverse businesses to connect with relevant audiences and open up endless opportunities for them to grow. We are helping them get discovered and scale their businesses across our Family of Apps. Our three focuses this year; Reels, AI, and Business Messaging, have been integral to the growth of our Meta community, which has reached 3 billion people worldwide - ultimately enabling over 200 million businesses of various scales worldwide to build their businesses on Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp," said Ben Joe, Vice President, Southeast Asia and Emerging Markets, Meta.

The Meta community has continued to grow over the past 20 years, reaching 3 billion people worldwide who use at least one of Meta’s apps every day, and 3.8 billion every month.

The business community is an important part of Meta as they become more connected and meet various opportunities and a wider customer base through features that support their business journey.

Speaking of content, Reels has become the most popular and most consumed type of content among the communities on Meta, and Reels has the fastest-growing format in the APAC region. According to Meta's Q4 2022 earnings call, the number of viewed Reels globally has doubled, and re-shared Reels content by the community on Facebook and Instagram has more than doubled compared to last year.

The growth of Reels is closely tied to the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in providing personalized experiences for people. According to findings from the Culture Rising Study, discussions about AI on Facebook and Instagram have increased by 173 per cent compared to last year. AI technology has also helped people see more personalised Reels videos that align with their preferences. The personalisation technology from AI has driven a 24 per cent increase in people's consumption of Reels content on Instagram.

One of the breakthroughs Meta has made to help businesses develop is the launch of Meta Advantage Suite in 2022 - a suite of products that simplifies the steps in ad creation and connects advertisers or business owners with the right creative assets and the right audience, at the right time.

In May, Meta also shared more details about how AI is being used to improve the performance of ads for businesses, including a first look at our AI Sandbox that’s testing generative AI capabilities for advertisers, new features in our Meta Advantage Suite of ad automation tools and more details on our AI infrastructure and modelling investments that underpin it all.

The third focus is the role of Business Messaging to facilitate business conversations between business owners and their audiences. Currently, over 1 billion people worldwide connect with businesses through Meta messaging apps every week.

“It is undeniable that our community in Việt Nam loves to connect with their friends and family through messaging services and they want to have the same experiences with businesses. Data from Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Meta in 2022 shows that at least one in three Vietnamese consumers send messages to businesses at least once a week. Among the countries with the highest rate of Business Messaging adoption, 73 per cent of Vietnamese consumers surveyed use Business Messaging to reach out to businesses. This shows that Business Messaging continues to play a role in supporting business growth and bringing businesses closer to customers," said Khôi Lê, Country Director for Meta in Vietnam.

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting and Meta in December 2022 also showed that Business Messaging products have a 61 per cent better impact compared to other communication channels previously used. For example, in terms of sales, the order value from customers is 22.1 per cent higher due to communication between sellers and buyers through business messaging. — VNS