Facebook is becoming less popular among teenagers

While popularity of Facebook is growing among 25+ age segment, younger generations switch to other social media sites.

Recent research from Piper Jaffray showed that popularity of Facebook has been rapidly declining from 2012 onwards. To worsen the matters, youth not just stopped using Facebook as much, they also started quitting it. So, from January 2011 Facebook has lost 6.7 mln users under 25 years old. This has been offset by increasing popularity among older generations. This research shows that demographics of Social Networks change rapidly. There is a huge gap in the perception of social media by 25+ and teenagers. This could be due to a mere “trendiness” of the new media or due to difference in needs that social media fulfills for different generations.

  

Source: http://istrategylabs.com/2014/01/3-million-teens-leave-facebook-in-3-years-the-2014-facebook-demographic-report/

Source: http://sallyu.com/2014/04/12/social-media-marketing-to-teens/

We all understand that every social media becomes obsolete at some point of time. While Facebook has been very successful in retaining its users and capturing its attention it now loses its popularity among teens. Facebook has to either catch up with the new trends or evolve into a niche media platform of its own. For the time being it looks like Facebook is trying to become a single source for all types of media for the consumers. In addition to the information about your friends and a lousy messenger it provides information about new trends and popular themes in the media. Not clear if it is a part of a clear strategy or just an attempt to catch up with the recent trends. In any case, they need to define what they want to become in the long term and start transformation until it becomes too late.

At the same time new types of social media that can better serve needs of the teens are emerging. Now Instagram and Twitter became two most important social media channels for teens. Probably, focus on simple limited functionality made Instagram and Twitter the media of choice for many teenagers.

But, as Red Queen from Alice in Wonderland said “If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that”. New forms of social media are growing in popularity and in a few years it will be the time for Instagram and Twitter to figure out how to retain their customers.

Source: http://www.jeffbullas.com/2014/01/17/20-social-media-facts-and-statistics-you-should-know-in-2014/