According to a research from Piper Jaffray, a American investment banking, less than halve of the American teens use Facebook nowadays. For this research he asked 7200 American teens. In spring 2014 he did the same research and then 45% of the teens use Facebook. Facebook was the most social medium but has been replaced by Instagram 76% and Twitter 59%.
Facebook aims to be a multi-sided platform. Age doesn’t matter that much. But when teens leave Facebook there will be less diffusion. If the American youth decides to move to Instagram, Facebook still makes money because they own Instagram. But the problem is that Facebook isn’t really monetizing Instagram yet. And when they move to Twitter, the problem is even bigger.
To make Facebook more popular for teenagers they have to add more features for them. But too many ‘Teenage stuff’ will give Facebook a too childish look and will annoy other users. For example, the dutch social network called Hyves had lots of, personalisation options, emoticons etc. but many people choose to move to Facebook because of the more professional look. That’s why they have to add new features carrefully.
Example of a too ‘childish’ look of a extinct Social network site called Hyves
Have you noticed that Teenagers leave Facebook? Why do you think they leave Facebook? What can Facebook do to attrack more Teenagers? Whats your opinion about this subject? leave a comment below.
References:
Click to access Taking%20Stock%20Teach-In%20Fall%202014.pdf
http://www.thestar.com/business/2014/10/08/teens_flee_facebook_for_twitter_instagram.html
There are some things facebook is already doing to attract teenagers. For example, they added the feature of following someone. This means that your posts can appear in a non-friends timeline! This is of course similar to twitter. A broader audience can be reached as you mentioned that twitter is the main competitor next to Instagram. Another way to attract teens is to open up chatrooms or a forum where you can discuss subjects with other facebook users instead of only talking with your friends! Teens have the urge to find people who are interested in the same things, especially if they are too shy to connect with people in real life. In my opinion as a facebook user, these features are not necessary! But from the business point of view I totally get why facebook is finding ways to attract teens as they are the future revenue generators for facebook.
I just read that Facebook is trying to attract young people by adding extra features like limited time frame post. It is similar to Snapchat that you post something and after certain time it disappears. I actually like this approach because I would not like if Facebook would allow stuff like personalization of your timeline. I think it would completely loose the purpose it is serving.
It must be really hard to please everyone but this approach with small apps I think is a good way not to completely ruin the idea which is allowing you to be socially connected to your friends and family.
I think that teenagers are moving away from Facebook because many older people are now active on Facebook. Teenagers do not like it that their parents or older family members are constantly checking them. Thus, due to privacy reasons teenagers tend to move to sites that adults, thus their parents and family members, are less likely to use. Furthermore, I read a recent study that found that younger people are starting to see Facebook as being a social burden. They do not want to spend time and energy anymore to post and update their Facebook profiles. In addition, many young people also indicated that they are annoyed by the long personal posts by their friends on Facebook that share more information than is really necessary. Thus, teens tend to move to other social media sites such as Instagram and Twitter because older people are not really active on these platforms, it is less time consuming and easier to update Twitter and Instagram, and they are no longer confronted by long unnecessary posts since only short messages and photos can be posted on these platforms. However, what I find interesting to see is that even though many younger people stop using Facebook; they still leave their accounts open. Facebook is still the social networking site where young people can find almost everyone they know in real life in one place, which is probably why they leave their account open so that they can still find people or so that they can use it for instance for school group projects.