Will TikTok decide the future of social media?

Facebook's founder Mark Zuckerberg and Snap CEO Evan Spiegel have said that the future of social media looks a lot more like TikTok in a seemingly rapid transition in the sector's market dynamics, The Verge reported.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta -- Facebook's parent company -- identified TikTok as a formidable competition to the platform.

"People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly," he said during Meta's fourth-quarter earnings call last Wednesday.

Snapchat invented the stories format of sharing pictures and videos that disappear. Now the company is indicating, along with Facebook, that the future of social media looks more like TikTok.

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Later on Thursday, Evan Spiegel, CEO of Snap Inc. which introduced Snapchat, told investors for its quarterly earnings report that users are spending less time watching stories from friends in the app and instead opting to watch viral videos by random users on TikTok, according to the report.

Users are increasingly enthusiastic to try out Snapchat's Spotlight section for trending videos and Discover section for premium shows, he said.

"This is a continuation of the trend we have observed throughout the pandemic, and friends' story posting and viewing per daily active user have not returned to pre-pandemic levels," Spiegel told investors.

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"While we are hopeful our community will in time return to the friends' story behaviours that we observed prior to the pandemic, we are focused on innovating on our content offerings to better serve our community today."

Snap is yet to reveal exactly what changes it is bringing to its content section. However, it is likely that the tab will look more like TikTok with full screen videos of premium shows from Spotlight creators, The Verge reported.

While Snap is still growing its user base and showing better-than-expected revenue growth, Meta has disappointed investors with more than $200 billion of its market value wiped out in a day.

Both Facebook and Snap now not only see TikTok as competition, but also are playing to catch up with the trend that now delves into compelling new formats with the potential to shift user attention quickly, the report added.