The young are leaving FB and the old are hopping on board

Is the older demographic as easy to influence possibly, as Gen Z? Where does the advertising model go from here? Just as with Instagram, will the bigger fish eat the smaller fish? This one has teeth, even if they are Gen Z young teeth. Aw snap, the Zuck i

Haven’t you heard? Print is at its last gasp. The entire world is moving to the digital space and the cosy camaraderie you enjoy with your newspaper every morning along with a steaming cup of tea or coffee is about to crash into oblivion... But here’s another story that I bet hasn’t been put out by the purveyors of fake news. I propose that the 2.2 billion active users on Facebook — a large enough body to make up the largest (virtual) country in the world, as has been noted many times — are looking for better ways to connect with friends and family. To be clear, we’re talking about a behemoth. Just consider, China’s population is a mere 1.379 billion, closely followed by India with a paltry 1.324 billion.

As far back as June 2016, CEO Mark Zuckerberg indicated that FB would move away from the publisher’s fold to promote content shared by family and friends of FB users. Becoming a family-first platform generates the danger of not being ‘liked’ by a host of publications, which in turn leads to fewer eyeballs, which means reduced spending, which means... Fastforward to today — a year-and-a-half later, is it the beginning of the end of a cultural phenomenon?

The Guardian just declared, “It’s official: Facebook is for old(er) people.” The newspaper was presenting numbers put out by the data analyst company eMarketer which predicts that in 2018, the 55+ age group will creep up to become the second biggest FB demographic. How did that happen? The platform is obviously not new (it’s just completed 14 years) — it’s just that the 55+ demographic is not known to be among the early adopters. This demographic has found that many among their friends and family share information, photos, news and opinions on FB and have finally given in. It appears that 2018 spells the point when the critical mass is reached for there to be a grey band (second-largest among all users) around the platform.

eMarketer estimates that FB will lose 2 million users aged 24 and younger this year in the US. This attrition in numbers seems to spell doom especially if it’s a key leading indicator of things to come. FB forked over $1 billion to acquire Instagram in 2012. By doing so, it visibly and powerfully demonstrated that it meant business by retaining the edge, since Instagram was taking off in terms of followers. If you can’t beat ’em, buy ’em, to bend an old saying. Then, in 2014, WhatsApp came into the fold with a price tag of $19 billion. This year, however, many of those leaving FB may not stay in the ‘family’ by moving to Instagram. They could well be checking-in at Snapchat.

Instagram will add 1.6 million users in the 24-and-younger age group in the US, predicts eMarketer, while Snapchat will up its numbers by 1.9 million users in the same band.

Over the past year, and in the run-up to the US elections, FB found itself in the middle of the fake news mess. Supposed Russian interference in the world’s loudest democracy. The term fake news itself is now common parlance. In such an environment, people started turning to traditional news media for what they termed verifiable content. Former employees spoke up about social media addiction and in December the company acknowledged it could be harmful to users’ mental health.

At a simpler level, the perception is that the ratio of publisher posts to individuals’ posts is much higher on FB vs other social media. The site’s algorithm tweaks the feeds to serve you what it thinks is preferable content. Many pages try to game the system by asking for likes or shares from readers leading to skewed ratings and further promotion by FB. Relevance scores, impressions, boosting scores, ad metrics — it’s a meat grinder of viewership packaged to the right marketers. But average Joe might get uncomfortable with being tracked so diligently.

Unilever has fired the first salvo, stating what average Joe feels: that the digital space is an unreigned, corrosive territory, “at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency”. The multinational spent around $2.4 billion on advertising in the digital space last year. On Monday, Unilever marketing chief Keith Weed unequivocally said, “Unilever will not invest in platforms or environments that do not protect our children or which create division in society, and promote anger or hate.” He said that, as the entity with the largest advertising spend globally, he had spoken with all the company’s partners in the digital universe. “It is in the digital media industry’s interest to listen and act on this,” Weed said.

What made FB zoom to the leaderboard when it started out was Zuckerberg’s muchvaunted attitude of letting the market decide what it truly wanted out of the product. That was what caused MySpace then to implode, with its restricted view of social introductions. But the same freedom might make FB’s product offering careen off course.

The changing demographic indicates that new entrants have the spending power today, but are they as easy to influence possibly, as Gen Z? So where does the advertising model go from here?

Just as with Instagram, will the bigger fish eat the smaller fish? This one has teeth, even if they are Gen Z young teeth. Aw snap, the Zuck is stuck.

This year, he has promised reflection on how to deliver better value to FB users. The algorithm will prioritise “meaningful social interactions” instead of what he termed “relevant content”. It can’t be calm repose. For a juggernaut like FB to be kept on track, it’s like he’s on a superfast treadmill that seems to be taking off on a different curve. Can’t get off that easily.

The Post looks like a bigger box-office draw than Social Network. I suggest that there is an undercurrent of snapping back to traditional media. There’s a sense of control and well-being in knowing that a bunch of ordinary standardissue humans are composing a broadsheet. Much better than some Alexa or Siri likeness working behind a digital divide feeding me what I should read. Besides, it’s so much easier to line my shelves with newsprint after I’ve read the paper end-to-end.