"Look out Facebook! Hours spent participating per member dropping seriously. First really bad sign as seen by crappy MySpace years ago."
If anyone knows what the death of a social media network does its Rupert Murdoch, who purchased Myspace in 2005 for $580M, and sold it for much less in 2011.
Is the end of Facebook coming? I don't think so.
A writer previosuly argued that her facebook usage was way down, but her instagram usage was way up. This is understandable as users switch from a laptop/desktop based worked to a smart phone world.
This does not mean the power of Facebook's social network is disappearing. It is meerly shifting... since Facebook owns Instagram.
While I'd expect facebook "participation" time to keep dropping, that participation time seems less necessary now that our networks are built. When people we first adding facebook friends, they were searching for new friends, and searching old pictures/posts as they found those friends. Now that connections are slowing, so will the amount of time spent searching for those connections and about those new connections. Additoinally, the amount of time spent on the site when using it from your handheld, will certainly be less than when you were accessing through your laptop/desktop. That does not mean that the number of users is dropping or the value of those users are disappearing. The social network is that, a network, and as long as people aren't turning off and disconnecting, a drop in usage isn't that big of a deal.
2 comments:
I definitely agree that Facebook usage is shifting from the desktop to other platforms. First it was moving to the laptop, now it has been moving to smartphones and tablets. This would explain the continued growth of Facebook users, as smartphones and tablets in use continues to grow as well.
However, I do not agree that people are moving from Facebook to Instagram. I see those as very different platforms in terms of their collaboration abilities. Instagram is popular for taking and sharing photos, but it is limited to that. FB has a much richer interface and will continue to be the destination for staying in touch with family and friends.
Well, their usage time figures might be dropping but take a look at their second quarter earnings that came out today after the market closed today.....earnings up 53% driven by mobile add growth. Mobile advertising revenue was up 76% alone.
The key take aways here are that 1) Facebook is super creative and innovative. They essentially went from no ad revenue to lots of ad revenue in a couple quarters. And 2) that hours a user spends is becoming less relevant. The key is that Facebook still has 700 million users that log on everyday. That is 700 million potential customers for a marketer. You do not a hour to hit them with 20 ads each. All you need is the user to be on for 5 or 10 minutes so they can get high impact impressions.
Facebook's real revenue growth will be from their ability to refine their ad marketing. They have 700 million unique visitors each day who they know intimately. Even if they can get just 4 ads in front of each users a day they can and should be high impact (i.e. expensive) ad placements.
Facebook is not dead they are just becoming profitable.
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