Facebook, a social network “exceeded”?

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Friday, 9 march 2018 15:56

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Friday, 9 march 2018 15:59

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The exodus of young users of social networks to platforms like Instagram and Snapchat is growing, at the expense of Facebook, that several of them even consider it as “outdated”.

A study by the firm eMarketer reported in February that Facebook was losing its younger users the benefit of applications that are more fashionable, particularly Instagram and Snapchat.

The firm expects a decline in the number of users aged 12 to 17 years of age in 2018 in the United States, a first.

The trend is not new, but it has accelerated dramatically since the rise of apps focused on visual content. Moreover, the explosion in the number of users of social network Snapchat in 2016 coincides with the decline in the number of young users of Facebook.

Facebook, a social network for “old”

For Jean-François Renaud, partner and co-founder of Adviso, a firm specializing in strategy and web marketing, several factors explain this change in consumption of content on social networks.

“Young people are leaving Facebook because they want anonymity and contents disappear and are not seen by their parents or their future employers,” he stressed. They are also looking for an environment that is more visual [than Facebook], where it is more colorful and joyful. They also want fewer ads.”

But most of all… they don’t want to be in the same environment as their parents.

In an article published on the website of Adviso, a student of the first school calls Facebook “application of old where there are really too many advertisements”. A feeling shared by more and more young people his age.

Anonymity and content ephemeral

Mr. Renaud noted that, for a slice older of the population, the notion of memory is much more important than in more young people, more attracted by the content sharing ephemeral that, by definition, are not likely to cause them harm in the future.

Sharing content on Instagram can be done by an ephemeral thanks to the feature “stories”, while the disappearance of the photos and videos is altogether the DNA of the application Snapchat.

“Young people don’t seem to value as much the aspect of sustainability of the content that there is on Facebook. On the contrary, not being able to return seems to be an added value for them, so that, for another generation, it is a problem.”

Facebook well-positioned in spite of everything

Thanks to its diversified portfolio, Facebook should come out rather unscathed from this “brain millénariaux”. The fact is that many of these young users migrate to applications that are owned by the giant of technologies.

“It is an exodus to different types of platforms,” said Mr. Renaud. In some countries of the world, WhatsApp is going to look for a lot of this traffic and, closer to home, it is Instagram that is going to look a lot. The two belong to Facebook.”

According to eMarketer, the trends observed over the last few years are not on the point of tipping. The firm expects that the number of users of Instagram in the United States will increase by 13 % by 2018 to reach $ 105 million. Figures superior to those of Snapchat (86.5 million users).

Despite its decline in popularity among the youth, eMarketer predicts that the number of users of Facebook will continue to climb for a few years, thanks in part to the arrival of many baby boomers on the social network.