For years, Facebook has been a hub of socialization for teenagers. It was a demographic they could count on. Facebook won’t be counting on them for long.
According to Facebook itself, the last quarter was the first time ever they lost teen users. They finally own up to it after even Mark Zuckerberg denied this loss of it’s core group. It’s already hitting the stock market. Their share prices dropped as soon as this news was announced. Well, the last time I checked, stocks climbed back up. News about them beating Q3 earnings drove them up.
Let’s look at the why. The first reason is Snapchat. It has over 100 million users and takes 350 million snaps a day. I don’t know how many of these are teens or teen driven. But you know how they jump to the next big think. I’m guessing it’s a lot. And let’s face it, Facebook and teens haven’t been best friends socially. The social media site has been linked to cyber bullying, though Facebook has put up a vigilant effort to fight and stop it. Then they’re other consequences. There’s been several news stories about people getting fired and/or not getting hired for ‘inappropriate’ posts and pictures on their FB page. Don’t even get me started on that one. But fewer and fewer teens want to even take that risk.
I say just let nature take it’s course. Another reason for the teen drop-off is they realize Facebook is something the older people do. What kid wants to do what older people do? And they’re right. Facebook uses among people over 21 is skyrocketing. What I suggest is they put their advertising focus on this group. But this leaves me with one question: Are teenagers logging off Facebook on their own or are helicopter parents logging off for them?