Where exactly are the young teens Facebook is losing going? Other social networks such as Twitter, Instagram, Tumblr and Snapchat, obviously.
What’s Not Cool in increase snapchat score?
Just what do these social media networks offer these trend-setting kids which Facebook doesn’t? It’s just that they are easy to use and are all about quick sharing and forgetting. Now we certainly do not want Facebook to become like that. We just love the quick tidbits or thoughts we are able to share plus the albums and photos of various aspects of our life that we want the world to know. Plus we also find it useful to join the relevant professional, social or fun groups and stay connected with like-minded people. It’s so exhaustive and there’s so much you can do and there are so many people you know in Facebook too.
But this mentality is diametrically opposite to that of a young teen. Teens are really not interested in creating albums of their life or even observing those of others. It’s just too boring for them, as this 13-year old confesses. They just want to stay connected with their peers and share what they feel at the time – Twitter serves the purpose – and maybe post a picture of something exciting they are doing and then forget it.
Facebook is Exhaustive but Teens Don’t Care
Facebook is a multiple media sharing site – pictures, videos, music, pages, random thoughts – plus joining groups, chatting and finding or applying for jobs. Twitter and Instagram aren’t quite like that.
With Twitter you can only post words and links, while with Instagram you can only upload and tag photos.
Tumblr is more of a blogging network where you have dashboards and private blogs and you can post images, text, audio clips, and videos.
You can’t help thinking that Facebook offers something much more than all of these combined. But exhaustive features are something teens do not particularly care about; it’s only as they grow older and mature to youth and adulthood that they begin to appreciate Facebook’s qualities.
As the 2013 Q3 earnings revelation has shown, Facebook is closing up to market dominance and the number of people signing up for new accounts is rising significantly. It’s just that young teens don’t get the point or that Facebook isn’t targeting the needs of teens.
Too Popular with Parents and Family
The popularity of Facebook is also what is turning off these young teens. This is because their parents and friends’ parents are also on Facebook and get to see some pictures or videos of their teenaged children some of which the latter may want to restrict to their friends alone. There are of course settings to regulate who all see their posts, but they may not want all the posts to be restricted and so not want the settings to affect all the posts. They may then need to customize each post for who views them.
Networks such as Instagram and Snapchat are mostly student-used or teen-used services and kids don’t run the risk of parents watching what they’re up to.
Needs to be More Mobile-friendly
Finally, what really turns the tide of teens’ actions is the fact that networks such as Instagram, Twitter and Snapchat are easier to use on their smartphones than Facebook’s mobile app. Kids really prefer posting what they feel and what they do there and then which answers why they’re on the mobile most of the time. Facebook falls back here a bit in its ease-of-use but it is something the social media giant can and will improve upon. A really user-friendly mobile experience would be all that’s needed for teens to forget about all the other factors and start using Facebook again.