A recent study revealed that there has been an almost 90% decline in Facebook users globally. Mediakix the social media marketing firm carried out this study. They analyzed more than 1 billion posts published on Facebook. It found that the average number of monthly active users fell to 272 million in Q2, 2017. And 190 million fewer people used the platform to share content on a daily basis. Facebook has been the biggest social networking platform with over a billion users, but it is now experiencing a downfall. This year, the Facebook-owned applications Instagram and WhatsApp both experienced rapid growth of inactive users. However, Facebook is not the only social networking platform that has noticed a decline in activity. Another platform Twitter saw its user base fall by 9 million between March and June 2017.
The number of monthly active users on Facebook worldwide declined to 2.196 billion in June 2017 from 2.23 billion in December 2016.
Growth of Facebook
Facebook has been the biggest social networking platform with over a billion users, but it is now experiencing a downfall. However, Facebook is not the only social networking platform that has noticed a decline in activity, another platform Twitter saw its user base fall by 9 million between March and June 2017. megafamous
Facebook experienced its largest growth when it made its way to the college market in 2004. It opened up to high school students in January 2005 and within a few months, about 10% of all North American teens were on Facebook.
Peak of Facebook
Facebook was in its peak time in mid-2007 when the number of daily active users sat at 15 million, with more than 60% of these users being between 13 and 17 years of age. However, Facebook grew exceptionally fast after this, as it rose to become the biggest media site in the world. By 2011, Facebook had risen to more than a quarter of all Internet traffic and it continued to grow quickly by 2012 with statistics showing an average growth rate of almost 30% in the previous year.
In October 2012, Facebook announced that it would shift the focus of its site to mobile users and the company bemoaned slow growth in Web usage. In 2014, Facebook became the world’s most visited website. It was then announced that more than half of all Internet traffic was coming from mobile devices.
Facebook’s average daily active users rose to 187 million in 2016, while mobile users now made up 81% of all Facebook users. However, this wasn’t enough as by June 2017 when its 2 billion user milestone was celebrated, Facebook had experienced a decline of about 3 million users, down from the 2.196 billion average monthly active users reported in June 2016.
Negative reports and controversies around Facebook
Facebook has been experiencing negative reports since 2011. When it was discovered that the site had manipulated the news feeds to experiment with its users’ emotions. Resulting in being sued by several organizations and 814,000 users who were exposed to the experiment. In 2013, Facebook conducted an initial public offering (IPO) and became a publicly-traded company. Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said in 2010 that he wanted to make Facebook an open platform for apps. This initiative was called Facebook Platform and it was launched in May 2007. The initiative’s purpose was to create a standardized set of APIs that allows other developers to create applications that would plug into Facebook to reach its 750 million users.
However, the platform was closed down in 2012 after many companies used it to extract user data and personal information that they were not supposed to access.
Starting decline in Facebook users
Mediakix also analyzed the top 100 global brands on Facebook. They found that 78% of them saw a decline in Facebook interactions. It is also reported that, out of the top 100 global brands, 69% of them had less than 30,000 likes on their company page. Among the top 100 companies, Nestle was the only one company that saw an increase in interaction with its posts on Facebook.
Reason for decline in Facebook users
Many believe the reason for the decline in Facebook users is because of the introduction of other social media platforms. For instance, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, and WhatsApp are all better options for users than Facebook. Which is used to broadcast a lot of personal information and experience regular promotion.
However, it is also reported that people do not see as much value in posting on Facebook. Because they do not see as much activity on their own timeline as they did before. In addition, companies are also finding that Facebook can be a waste of money.
Can Facebook recover?
Facebook has been working hard to recover from the drop in user interest. This is not the first time that Facebook has faced such a problem. For example, in early 2016 more than 6 million users left Facebook after the company’s privacy scandal. At the time, the former CEO of Facebook stated that they had made changes to their policies to ensure more transparency. To give people flexibility on sharing information with third-party apps.
In addition, Facebook also plans to start using less personal user data and make changes in privacy. In 2019, the company will have to provide greater user control and transparency on how it uses information. Facebook has experienced a decline due to a number of factors. However, it is important that the company learns from its mistakes and creates an efficient platform for others to use.
Conclusion of decline in Facebook users
Social media is a great tool for businesses to market themselves. Facebook provides companies with an opportunity to reach a large number of people and increase their revenue. But when it comes to social media, Facebook is not the king in the market. In fact, in 2017, about 79% of all U.S. internet users ages 18 and older used Facebook as compared to 73% of users who used Instagram, according to Pew Research Center’s Internet Project.