Facebook on Wednesday reported a decline in daily use among younger teens
Facebook's popularity might be on the decline among some teenagers, the company signaled Wednesday.
For younger teenagers, Facebook has seen a decline in the number of daily users, the company reported during its third-quarter earnings call. Overall, usage among U.S. teens was stable between the second and third quarters, but the decrease in daily usage for some was noted early in the prepared remarks of Facebook's chief financial officer, David Ebersman.
It was one of the first times that the social network has identified a decrease in its teenage users. Youth engagement on Facebook is hard to measure because self-reported age data is usually unreliable for younger users, the company said. But, "we wanted to share [the figure] because we get a lot of questions about teens," Ebersman said.
Facebook didn't disclose the size of the decline or comment on it further.
With many rival services vying for younger users' attention, Facebook's ability to keep them on its site is an issue. One area of intense competition is messaging. Facebook operates its own standalone app just for messages, called Messenger, but services such as Snapchat, WhatsApp and Skype are also popular.
Part of the issue might be that everyone seems to be on Facebook now, and teens want their own place to digitally mingle. "Teens don't want to be on the same site as their parents," said Brian Blau, who's an industry analyst with Gartner and a parent of a teenager himself.
Also, a study released by Pew Research Center earlier this year found that the "drama" on Facebook might be driving more teens to one of Facebook's biggest rivals: Twitter.
Overall, on a monthly basis, Facebook grew its number of users to 1.19 billion during the quarter, an increase of 18 percent from last year. Total sales for the company, aided by mobile, were up 60 percent, to US$2.02 billion.
During the call, Facebook said it would continue to build products for people of all ages.
Zach Miners covers social networking, search and general technology news for IDG News Service. Follow Zach on Twitter at @zachminers. Zach's e-mail address is zach_miners@idg.com
Many marketers, agencies - and everyone in between - get caught up on bubble references and data points. They’ll use Facebook best practice as the only best practice for Facebook executions and only consider metrics and responses of the one channel they’re expected to deliver on.
A few weeks ago, our Prime Minister, Scott Morrison took it upon himself to tell companies and their CEOs where to go when it came to societal issues. It wasn’t an organisation’s place to get involved. Instead, he said it should be left to governments to solve societies challenges.
A study published in The Harvard Business Review found the time spent in collaborative activities at work has increased by over 50 per cent in the past two decades. Larger projects; complicated problems; tighter timeframes: These require bigger teams with specialised skillsets and diverse backgrounds, often dispersed globally.
In this bonus last episode of this new podcast series, BrandHook MD, Pip Stocks, talks with former ANZ group general manager of marketing, Louise Eyres, talks about the importance of thinking like a customer and using intuition to solve customer painpoints.
Informative blog. Xero is a well-known revolutionized accounting software, specifically developed to provide best User Experience and mak...
NavkarConsultancyServices
Xero evolves to fit a changing marketplace
>Writes article about how to show diversity in an authentic way>All featured opinions are from white women
Jennifer Metcalfe
Food for Thought: How can brands show diversity in an authentic way?
Excellent post, congratulations !!! - Prof Paulo Coelho | https://www.drpaulocoelho.c...
Prof Paulo Coelho
The B2C and B2B marketing transformation helping Invisalign win more smiles
Great article - but regarding "For a team to achieve their full potential, Edmonson also advises leaders balance psychological safety wi...
Sim
3 skills you need to drive better collaboration - Business leadership - CMO Australia
I would invest money in machine learning. I think it's important to do that. Don't you agree?
Polly Valentine
Metcash to use AI for promotional planning optimisation in liquor division