Statistics:
A report by the Pivotal Research Group analyst Brian Wieser states that the digital consumption of content across Facebook properties including the primary social media platform, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp has dropped 7 percent in September.The report published in Fast Company also claims that even though Facebook’s official website netted more users, the consumption rate dropped to 20% per user.
According to the company’s Information Commissioner the UK, Facebook is experiencing a lot of scrutiny after the Cambridge Analytica hack in March.
In-depth:
Even though Facebook remains a key player in the digital world, the social networking site is showing some signs that it may be in trouble due to constant data breaching. This has significantly affected its ongoing efforts to retain customers loyalty that are spending less time on the site. The decline in content consumption can also lead to brands pulling back their ads from the platform affecting the bulky revenue that Facebook receives from them.In fact, the American Customer Satisfaction Index 2018 reports that user’s satisfaction with social media overall has dropped 1.4% while Facebook ranks near the bottom with a satisfaction score of 67 out of 100. Instagram, another Facebook-owned company dropped 4% and ranks at 72.
Luckily, despite the hacks and privacy issues – Facebook has not yet experienced major fallout of advertisers. According to C3 Metrics, average Facebook spends per month was about $140,000 in January 2018 and dropped to under $20,000 in May. However, the figures climbed back up to $120,000 in August. Nevertheless, the C3 analysis reports the ROI from ad dollars spent on Facebook dropped to below 0.5 in August from a value of two.
Facebook’s Q3 2018 earnings reports also signify the decline in the company’s revenue. According to the report, the social network company saw a 33% increase for a total of $13.73 billion which is the lowest percentage increase in the past six years.
The company has approximately 2.6 billion users per month across its major properties including Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram. The daily active user in September was around 1.49 billion – a 9% increase by the year but a figure that falls below the analyst forecasts.
Image: Anthony Quintano / Flickr.
