The disappointing results of Facebook published by its parent company Meta, showed that this social network has a hard time attracting young people between 15 and 25 years old, and the founder, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that “people have many options to pass the time, and applications like TikTok are growing very fast.”
Facebook lost for the first time in its history almost a million active daily users in the last quarter, with 1,929 million subscribers at the end of 2021.
“Until now, Facebook has managed to offset its subscriber losses in North America with new sign-ups in other parts of the world,” said Vincent Reynaud-Lacroze, CEO of communications agency We Are Social.
“We see a turning point in the network, just when the group has invested billions and hopes to reinvent itself with the metaverse, an innovation from which Meta has not yet benefited,” Reynaud-Lacroze told AFP.
“When parents come to a social network, young people flee to another where they can have their own space”Flavilla Fongang
Although Facebook is still the most used social network in the world, it has nothing to do with the brilliant rise of its Chinese competitorespecially among the young.
According to the 2022 report from the We Are Social agency, TikTok gained 650,000 new users per day in the last quarter of 2021, eight every second. Its number of active users shows a growth of 45%.
The turnover of its parent company, Bytedance, increased by 70% in one year, reaching 58,000 million dollars.
“This change is explained by the inability of Facebook to capture followers of the ‘Generation Z’, between 15 and 25 years”, said Vincent Reynaud-Lacroze.
“It has become the platform of the ‘boomers’, born during the baby boom of the 1960s”, joked Reynaud-Lacroze, because “the average age of Facebook users is higher”.
For its part, Flavilla Fongang, the founder of the specialist brand communication agency 3 Colors Rule, in Londoncommented to AFP that “when parents come to a social network, young people flee to another where they can have their own space.”
“Facebook has become the platform of the ‘boomers’, born during the baby boom of the 1960s”Reynaud-Lacroze
He added, “Young people have quickly adapted to the codes and functions of TikTok, where they can express their creativity with choreography or musical excerpts.”
“You can create viral content even if you only have ten or twelve followers and have, like on Twich, interactions with complete strangers,” Fongang added.
At first, TikTok was practically only young, but more and more adults use this social network.
Not to be left behind, Meta bets on Instagram, a very popular network despite not having the innovative dynamics of the Chinese application.
Meta bets on Instagram, a very popular network despite not having the innovative dynamics of Tik Tok
In 2021, Instagram gained 250 million users and already has 1.4 billion, which allows the group to relativize its poor results. Even so, the age of its audience on Instagram is more heterogeneous, as on WhatsApp.
Meta added the “Reels” feature to Instagram, with which you can create short TikTok-like videosand this seduced its users, although it did not reach the level of remuneration generated by its classic formats.
In addition, Instagram will allow “influencers” to offer paid subscriptions to their followers, with the idea of attracting and retaining content creators and not going to YouTube or TikTok.
The results of last Wednesday caused the shares of the American giant to plummet 24% on Wall Street this Thursday, but it is still the dominant social network worldwide.
“It has lost a million users out of 2 billion,” Reynaud-Lacroze concluded.
