On October 29th, Beijing time, Mark Zuckerberg (Mark Zuckerberg) on Facebook
It was officially announced at the Connect meeting that the company name would be changed to “Meta”. Zuckerberg said: “The metaverse is the next frontier, so the company will prioritize the metaverse instead of Facebook.” Now this infinite loop symbol “∞” has replaced the company. The iconic Like icon of the thumb on the Menlo Park Global Headquarters card.
It is reported that the name Meta means “future” and is intended to remind people of the dawn of “meta universe”. Choosing to no longer be attached to the past, but can the new vest of Meta really allow Zuckerberg to capture the next generation?
Facebook is no longer young
According to reports, earlier this year, a Facebook researcher shared some shocking statistics with colleagues. According to these data, the world’s largest social network is facing an existential crisis: its user base is aging.
Since 2019, the number of 13-19-year-old users of Facebook in the United States has fallen by 13%, and it is expected that this number will drop by 45% in the next two years. This means that for the company’s lucrative advertising market, the number of daily activities will drop qualitatively. In the next two years, the number of young users aged 20-30 is also expected to drop by 4%.
To make matters worse, the data shows that the younger the user, the fewer the average number of times they use Facebook. All signs indicate that Facebook is rapidly losing its appeal to the younger generation.
“Fortune” magazine also published an article before that: Facebook’s image in people’s minds is no longer what it used to be. Many people think it is old, and even the Instagram filters can’t regain its youthful appearance.
The researchers wrote in an internal memo: “Aging of users is a real problem.” They predict that if “teenagers use Facebook less as they age,” the decline in the number of young Facebook users will become more severe. Expected to be more serious.
The above research results are consistent with the trends revealed in other internal Facebook documents, and also consistent with the results of the survey conducted by the outside world on Facebook’s current/former employees. In addition, although Facebook’s Instagram is still very popular among teenagers, the company’s data shows that the use of Instagram by teenagers is also decreasing.
At present, Facebook has regarded the aging user group as the company’s long-term survival threat, and is working hard to take countermeasures. But there is no indication that the strategy adopted by Facebook has worked. And if this trend cannot be reversed quickly, this 17-year-old social media network may lose an entire generation in the future for the first time.
The internal documents mentioned above are part of the information Facebook disclosed to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and provided to Congress in edited form by Frances Haugen’s legal counsel. Haogen was once an employee of Facebook and has now turned into a well-known “whistleblower” who exposed Facebook’s insider issues.
In order to attract users under the age of 30, Facebook’s efforts can be traced back to 2012 as early as 2012. However, according to the aforementioned internal documents, the problem of the loss of young Facebook users has become more serious recently, and the risk is already high.
Facebook was originally a well-known social networking site for college students. Although the current daily life is nearly 2 billion, employees predict that the problem of user aging will worsen until it cuts off the connection between Facebook and the younger generation, and will cause the company’s future growth to hit the ceiling.
Because of this, Facebook is committed to arousing the interest of young people who are at least young users. For this strategy, the company even set up a dedicated youth team for this purpose. In 2017, the company also launched an instant messaging app Messenger for children. Facebook also has plans to launch a children’s version of Instagram, but it has been suspended due to recent accusations from legislators.
At the same time, other social networking platforms that were established later are becoming increasingly popular among young people, which has aroused close attention and research on Facebook. Among them, Snapchat is currently the preferred method of communication among young people.
In response to the media’s question of the loss of young user groups, Facebook spokesperson Joe Osborne said: “Our products are still widely used by young people, but we face fierce competition from companies such as Snapchat. All social Media companies want young people to use their services. We are no exception.”
The number of users is deteriorating
In March of this year, Facebook data scientists submitted a report to the company’s chief product officer, Chris Cox. The report shows Facebook’s “health card” and the use of Instagram among teenagers. Although Instagram is still very popular among young people, it is gradually losing the participation of young people in key markets such as the United States, Australia and Japan, and the average age of Facebook’s user base is also rising rapidly.
According to the report, “most young people think that Facebook is an application for middle-aged people, and that its content is boring, misleading and negative.” According to the report, young people’s impression of Facebook is generally negative, which involves infringement of user privacy. And low awareness of related services and so on.
The report also shows that Facebook’s growth rate in the US youth group is very low, and this number is still declining. In the top five countries where Facebook is used, the number of account registrations for users under the age of 18 dropped by 26% from the previous year. For those young users who have registered, their participation is generally lower than that of older user groups, and this trend is getting worse. The information sent by young users dropped by 16% from the previous year, while the information sent by users aged 20-30 was the same as a year ago.
Young people in the United States spend less time on Facebook apps than they did before the outbreak of the new crown epidemic last year, which has caused concerns within the company. When the epidemic broke out, the utilization rate of Facebook services had soared across the board.
The report also proposes that the difference in participation between young users and middle-aged and young users should be narrowed.
Statistics show that people over 30 in the United States spend an average of 24 minutes more on Facebook every day than young users. In addition, the average age of Facebook users continues to decline, and the rate of decline far exceeds the growth rate of the average age of the population. There is no doubt that if this situation continues, Facebook will lose the younger generation.
Instagram has done a better job retaining young people, and it has reached full saturation in developed countries such as the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia. But it is not without worries. Researchers pointed out that compared with 2020, the number of youth postings has dropped by 13%.
Young user promotion sprint plan
In order to solve the crisis of the loss of young users, in the past year, Facebook and Instagram have been working hard to launch products tailored for teenagers and young people. However, they also gradually realized that this will be an uphill battle.
According to a Facebook strategy document on young users last November, young people generally believe that Facebook should not be a place full of rants and accusations. External factors such as negative media reports have further deepened this view of young people.
Facebook temporarily shelved some projects in November last year, focusing more resources and time on rebuilding credibility, gaining user trust, and expanding its business to other areas of mental health products in the future. They have formulated a long-term plan to “enable young people to get the guidance of professional mentors and have meaningful conversations around their careers so that they can take action with people in the same region.”
According to this plan, Facebook will require young people to update their friend network to make it more relevant, because young people’s network of relationships on Facebook “is often dormant, even though they may have hundreds of friends in their circle of friends. , But it’s difficult to realize any value from it.” Facebook also plans to adjust the News Feed algorithm specifically for young people, and plans to test the adjusted algorithm in the second half of this year, so as to push users some useful content of accounts that are not followed. .
Facebook is also discussing whether young people can set up different profiles according to different groups. Other plans include a more intuitive information delivery product called “Spotlight” and the so-called “mood feeds” feature, all aimed at increasing “views and engagement.”
As part of the promotion activities for young users, the company has been developing a Facebook group product called Groups+, which has not yet been released to the public, but will start testing as soon as possible this year. The product aims to allow people to join groups with specific personalities and “closely connected communities”, thereby “enhancing cultural relevance.”
For the 20-30 year old user group, Facebook also plans to develop a complete set of products and compete with LinkedIn. These products will make it easier for people to browse, find jobs/career guidance, and deliver resumes at the same time.
7% of teenagers have been bullied on Instagram
Instagram’s product development work for young people has recently focused on reducing negative experiences such as social comparison and bullying. A report earlier this year stated that 7% of teenagers had encountered bullying on Instagram, and 40% of bullying occurred in private information exchanges. There are also media reports that some teenagers experience negative social comparisons when using Instagram, and some people also experience depression as a result.
According to reports, Instagram will launch a “Nudging” feature for teenagers. The original design was that if teenagers browse harmful content for too long, it will “nudge” users, warn users that the content is harmful, and encourage users to pause and take a break from browsing Instagram.
Finsta, the abbreviation of Fake Instagram, is opposite to Rinsta (Real Instagram). Finsta refers to private accounts, which are mainly popular among young people. Fans are usually very close friends of themselves.
According to the report, 61% of Instagram’s newly registered youth accounts set their personal information to “private” during the initial setup. Instagram wants to fine-tune the “nudging” feature to encourage more young users to set up their accounts as private accounts. In addition, research has also shown that the popularity of “finsta” private accounts has also exploded, especially among young Instagram users-Instagram encourages the use of such accounts in the hope of retaining young people.
Instagram researchers believe that: “Teenagers value social interaction with friends. They are often private and don’t want to make them public to all followers. They only want to share these connections with people they trust, so that they can be seen and seen each other. The feeling of being accepted and recognized.”
Attracting young people and increasing their participation remains the primary goal of Instagram. Adam Mosseri, the head of Instagram, told employees in May this year that the company’s goal is to “be a place where young people can define themselves and their future.”
Uncertain future
The loss of young Facebook users was not as serious as this before. But whencell phoneIn the age when selfies, filters, and camera rolls are in the sky, social networking with pictures and videos is in full swing, but Facebook is still dominated by text content, so it’s no wonder that young people continue to “leave”.
Facebook can learn from the successful experience of Snapchat-making users “invisible”, thereby reducing the pressure on them to share daily fragments of life-which helps to keep young users on Instagram.
Instagram has taken similar measures-encouraging users to use multiple accounts at the same time. But the use of Facebook by young people has been declining.
In 2017, the talented young engineer Michael Sayman (Michael Sayman, who began internship at Facebook at the age of 17 and became a regular at 18), a talented young engineer trained by Facebook, switched to Google, and Facebook really recognized the situation. This is a matter of whether it can attract the whole The problem of a generation.
Today, teenagers are increasingly flocking to more immersive social gaming platforms, such as Fortnite or Roblox. These virtual 3D game worlds provide customized avatars, attracting young people who want to be online but don’t want others to comment on their opinions. In contrast, traditional social media is like a show for others, while the virtual game world can bring more “surfing in a vest” to young people themselves.
Facebook is still not sure whether the plan to win back young people is sufficiently complete. The report in March this year was blunt: “Considering the current competitive environment, it is too early to evaluate the effectiveness of our series of measures aimed at recalling young users.”
At present, Facebook has stated that it is refocusing its work on “serving young people.” CEO Zuckerberg said that he has repositioned the company team and “serving young people” will become the North Star that indicates the direction of the company’s actions. He said that this change is not just a verbal statement, “This is the right path.”
Zuckerberg predicts that it will take several years to achieve a change in the company’s strategy. One of the changes that may be seen soon will come from Instagram. He said that Instagram will have “significant changes” that will further tilt towards video elements and make the Reels short video function “a more core part of the user experience.”