Facebook is a busy social media platform, it has a lot of everything. From advertising, text, images, video and events to a plethora of other apps. It is hard to keep up with everything happening on Facebook. Brands on Facebook can often slip away unnoticed.
On your mobile phone’s home screen, most users will have four apps owned by Facebook: Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger. So the question arises: does Facebook have the same clout that it used to?
Facebook is mainly used by woman between the ages of 18-29. In ten years time, will Facebook be seen as an older person’s social network? Over three years Facebook has shown a negative user sign-up rate of under 18 years olds, down 25%. Over the same period, the 55+ age group has exploded by +80.4% growth in the last three years. It must be noted that this is off a very small base with the increase being almost negligible in real terms.
Where are under 17’s going instead? Not surprisingly, they are moving to mobile chat services like WeChat, and photo-sharing apps like Instagram and Snapchat.
What’s interesting is how quickly teenagers globally are taking up other services instead of Facebook.
Conclusion:
In reaching teenagers under 17 and people over this age, your brand must have a strong mobile presence, whether it be app-based or a mobi-friendly website. One key point is that your brand must be interactive.
In South Africa Facebook still has an active user base and Facebook is still essential for your brand, it is however important to be associated with other platforms which your future target market is active on and using. Why? Because under 17s indicate the direction of trends.
