Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) is up 45% so far this year after proving that shiny new social media firm Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP) was no competition for the tech behemoth. At $167.41 per share, FB stock is trading near all-time highs but that doesn’t mean it’s time to cash out. In fact, just the opposite. Facebook stock has much higher to climb. Many are expecting to see the firm make its way above $200 per share in just a few months, and I’m one of them.
Size Matters
The days in which investors questioned whether the social media site was just a passing fad are long gone. Facebook has become ingrained in everyday life, and that makes the company a force to be reckoned with.
When SNAP came on the scene, many wondered whether the disappearing video and message app would be the beginning of the end of FB’s dominance in the social media space. However, both firms’ most recent quarterly reports prove that prediction is simply not the case. Facebook was able to add more users in just one year than SNAP has in the six years since its inception.
The results confirm that size matters in the social media space, and FB is at the top by a mile.
Taking Out the Competition
Part of the reason that SNAP hasn’t been able to make a meaningful dent in FB’s user numbers is the fact that Facebook took what people love about SNAP and added it to its own platform. Instagram stories offered users the ability to share without posting a permanent picture, a feature that essentially defined Snapchat at the time.
Now, Facebook is upping its filter game to put the final nail in SNAP’s coffin.
One of the only things Snapchat is doing better than FB right now is its filters, which increase engagement and make images and videos more attractive. However, many are looking to FB’s acquisition of Fayteq, a German video-editing firm, as a way for Facebook to offer a better range of filters than SNAP does.
One of Fayteq’s biggest draws is the fact that it can add and remove objects from a video, something that would enhance users’ experience with Instagram stories and provide a unique draw that SNAP doesn’t offer.
Looking further in the future, Fayteq may also be able create Virtual-Reality-enhanced features to Instagram Stories, a move that would generate a lot of buzz for the platform.
Watch Out
Another big growth engine for FB stock in the coming months will be its latest innovation, Watch.
The new addition to the social media site offers original video programming that is said to be curated on an individual basis for each user. The cool thing about Watch is that FB already has so much data on each user and what they like to look at that the curated content is likely to be pretty accurately filtered.
That’s a big deal in the streaming space because sifting through the huge content libraries of sites like Netflix, Inc. (NYSE:NFLX) and Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) is a potential barrier for some users. A company like Netflix knows very little about its users before they sign up. It’s not until they’ve watched or rated a few titles that NFLX can determine what they might want to watch.
Compare that to Facebook, which has been logging what its users watch and read for years, and you can imagine that tailored video channels will be a pretty smooth next step.
Advertising Win for Facebook
It’s possible that Facebook’s content push could become an alternative to traditional cable, eventually allowing FB to charge subscription fees and generate income that way. However, the immediate impact will almost certainly be advertising dollars. Right now it looks like Facebook’s video offering more closely resembles that of Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:GOOGL) YouTube — which has been a favorite among advertisers.
Facebook will need time to build up content the way that YouTube has, but I think Watch will have the potential to lure advertisers away from GOOGL because Facebook offers a social element that YouTube doesn’t. Since Google+ never really took off, the liking and commenting users experience on YouTube are more anonymous than they are on Facebook.
FB will be able to offer channels based on different communities within its video site, something that will probably drive engagement and allow advertisers to better target their potential customers.
The Bottom Line
It’s going to be a huge year for FB stock. Not only are we looking at the rollout of a potentially game-changing video service, but the firm is also expanding its social media offerings in order to remain the top dog within the space.
While there hasn’t been a lot of recent news regarding monetizing the firm’s messaging services, it’s important to note that Facebook’s control of the two largest messaging services in the world also provides a great growth catalyst.
It doesn’t matter that FB stock has already seen impressive growth this year, it’s still a buy because the tech firm still has a lot higher to climb.
As of this writing, Laura Hoy was long FB, NFLX and AMZN.
