Not A Happy Valentine For Facebook

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New research released on MediaPost yesterday backs up the contention that a lot of people have had recently: younger generations are moving away from Facebook...

"This year, in fact, less than half of U.S. internet consumers ages 12-to-17 will use Facebook, the research foresees.

By eMarketer’s reckoning, that’s because growth among 12- to 17-year-olds will drop by 5.6%, this year.

Additionally, Facebook will see growth among 18-to-24s dip by 5.5%, while the number of domestic users younger than 12 will decline by 9.3%, this year. 

eMarketer defines a “user” as someone who accesses their social media account at least once per month. 

In the age of Facebook, this is the first time eMarketer has predicted a decline in usage among 18-to-24s and those younger than 12. All told, Facebook will lose 2 million users under the age 25, this year.

More troubling still for Facebook, not all of those young users are migrating to Instagram, according to eMarketer principal analyst Debra Aho Williamson. 

Snapchat is apparently still cool enough to steal a share of young people. This year, the app is set to add 1.9 million U.S. users under the age of 25. Still, Snap has its own problems, according to Williamson.

“Snapchat could eventually experience more growth in older age groups, since it’s redesigning its platform to be easier to use,” Williamson said. “The question will be whether younger users will still find Snapchat cool if more of their parents and grandparents are on it.”

Of course, “that’s the predicament Facebook is in,” Williamson notes. 

Stateside, Instagram is still bigger than Snapchat. This year, eMarketer expects the number of Instagram’s U.S. users to total 104.7 million -- up 13.1% from 2017.

Snapchat will rack up 86.5 million users, this year -- an increase of 9.3% compared to 2017.

While its domestic growth will slow to below 1%, Facebook is still on track to lead the pack in 2018 with 169.5 million domestic users"

I can tell you from recent contests the media property I work for is engaged with on Facebook, we are still seeing some huge numbers 18+ but we haven't marketed to the 12-17 year-old segment in any of the contests or lead generation campaigns we have put forward.

I do watch my neices and nephews and even my Millenial young adults,..they use Instagram and Snapchat a lot for pop culture and those types of posts and use Facebook when they want to get the word out to everyone in the family and friends network that includes the older demo's.