By Meghan Bobrowsky

Social media companies' reliance on selling ads exposes them to tariff pain, at least indirectly.

Shares of Meta Platforms, Pinterest and Reddit all fell again Friday in response to President Trump's sweeping tariffs on goods from many countries, including China and Vietnam. The parent company of Google-not a social media company but certainly a major player in the ad world-also slid. Snap edged higher after declining 9.7% Thursday.

Companies that use social media platforms to reach customers are expected to pull back on ad spend, due to higher operating costs and dampened enthusiasm for chasing U.S. users if the cost of doing business here rises dramatically, according to analysts.

"It's a monster type of policy shift that's really going to impact everybody," said Angelo Zino, an analyst at CFRA.

TD Cowen analyst John Blackledge dropped his revenue growth estimate for Meta on Friday by an average of nearly two percentage points a quarter for the current and following two quarters.

Mark Kelley, an analyst from Stifel, estimates 3% to 4% of Meta's revenue comes from Asia-based companies selling into the U.S. Another ad analyst, Brian Wieser, pegged the number at 6%.

This item is part of a Wall Street Journal live coverage event. The full stream can be found by searching P/WSJL (WSJ Live Coverage).

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 04, 2025 16:44 ET (20:44 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.