Is Facebook driving away teens?

April 16, 2013

New research has shown that whilst Facebook and YouTube are still important for many teens their popularity has been falling steadily amongst this demographic over the last year. So are teens being driven away by Facebook’s new updates or are they leaving in favour of other, newer, more specialist social media platforms?

Recently Facebook has often been accused of turning away from teens to concentrate on the 18-49 demographic which is so important to many advertisers. Facebook’s new changes include an update to the News Feed which will allow dedicated streams of content as decided by the user. These dedicated streams will present information in a more magazine-style format, from which users can scroll down to the content they want. This will hopefully improve engagement and mean people spend longer on the site; keeping marketers happy!

However, teens are not abandoning social media. Rather they are leaving Facebook in favour of newer, ‘cooler’ platforms such as Instagram, Snapchat and Tumblr. Interestingly, these new apps often have a very specific USP or specialised area which attracts users.

So is Facebook missing out by failing to appeal to teens? Teens currently make up an $819 billion consumer segment with 53% of females and 52% of males admitting that social media chatter influences their purchasing decisions.

Is Facebook just failing to be the next new thing? Or is it right to focus on the more advertiser friendly 18-49 demographic? Let us know your thoughts!

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