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Goodbye Facebook, Hello TikTok? Meta slump reignites debate over attracting younger audiences

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Clara Lalanne and Joseph Boyle, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img alt="Facebook logo and stock graph are displayed through broken glass in this illustration taken October 4, 2021. Dado Ruvic/Reuters Illustration/File Photo" src="https://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2022/reuters/02/04/20220203-meta-platforms-results-options.jpg"/><figcaption>Facebook logo and stock graph are displayed through broken glass in this illustration taken October 4, 2021. <em>Dado Ruvic/Reuters Illustration/File Photo</em></figcaption></figure></div><p>PARIS, France - Facebook announced on Thursday that its daily user numbers had fallen for the first time in its history, reopening the debate around its problem with attracting new, younger subscribers.</p><p>The firm&#x27;s founder, Mark Zuckerberg, was in no doubt who was to blame.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/02/04/22/zuckerberg-loses-29b-in-a-day-as-meta-shares-crash">Zuckerberg loses $29 billion in a day, as Meta shares crash</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/02/03/22/facebook-parent-metas-profit-slips-as-problems-pile-up">Facebook parent Meta&#x27;s profit slips as problems pile up</a></li></ul><p>&quot;People have a lot of choices for how they want to spend their time, and apps like TikTok are growing very quickly,&quot; he told investors, according to US media.</p><p>TikTok has continued its soaring growth, particularly among younger audiences attracted by its user-friendly controls and upbeat content of mostly very short, self-made videos.</p><p>&quot;TikTok from the beginning has focused on a younger audience -- the style of the content, the music, the dancing,&quot; says Flavilla Fongang, who runs London-based branding agency 3 Colours Rule.</p><p>&quot;Their moment has really come in the pandemic, where people were desperately looking for ways to stay connected.&quot;</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/08/11/21/tiktok-tops-facebook-as-most-downloaded-app-of-2020">TikTok tops Facebook as most downloaded app of 2020</a></li>	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/09/28/21/tiktok-says-it-has-more-than-1-billion-users">TikTok says it has more than 1 billion users</a></li></ul><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1909672" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div><p>In the same time period, Facebook -- whose parent company has been renamed Meta -- has been battling regulatory issues, negative headlines around bullying and disinformation, and on Wednesday faced a huge slide in its share price.</p><p>That said, Facebook remains the world&#x27;s most popular social media network by far.</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/spotlight/11/11/21/facebook-whistleblower-extremely-worried-by-metaverse">Facebook whistleblower ‘extremely concerned’ by metaverse</a></li></ul><p>It lost one million daily users in the last quarter of last year but still has almost 1.9 billion, figures that dwarf every other platform.</p><p>So does Facebook need to worry about attracting younger audiences, and can it do anything to remedy its image as a platform for the older generation?</p><div><strong>&#x27;Boring, misleading, negative&#x27;</strong></div><p>The company itself clearly thinks so.</p><p>It has been focused on the question for almost a decade, according to papers released last year by whistleblower Frances Haugen, some of which detailed the platform&#x27;s concerns about losing young audiences.</p><p>&quot;Young adults perceive content as boring, misleading, and negative,&quot; data scientists told Facebook bosses, according to an account from Haugen&#x27;s documents reported on The Verge website.</p><p>Yet up until this year, the platform had been able to post impressive growth figures.</p><p>Analysts say this was papering over the cracks.</p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s not something that&#x27;s new, this migration of younger users away from the core Facebook platform,&quot; says analyst Matt Bailey from London-based Omdia group.</p><p>&quot;It was making up for those lost users with older demographics... but it&#x27;s reached a bit of a saturation point among those older audiences.&quot;</p><div><strong>Bet on the metaverse</strong></div><p>Facebook has been looking at TikTok&#x27;s rise with alarm and some jealousy.</p><p>The upstart app added 650,000 new users every day in the final quarter of last year, according to the We Are Social communications agency. </p><figure class="op-interactive"><iframe allow="autoplay; fullscreen" frameBorder="0" height="100%" id="ivsplayer01" scrolling="no" src="https://player.ivideosmart.com/ivsplayer/v4/dist/html/iframe-src.html?iframeid=ivsplayer01&amp;key=e8c22c015ca9eafa76f1e3edfa03c603&amp;spid=3001339&amp;vid=1887272" width="100%"></iframe></figure><div class="iwantbar">Watch more in <a href="//www.iwantv.com.ph/">iWantv</a> or <a href="//tfc.tv/">TFC.tv</a></div><p>&quot;This change in dynamics between the two firms can be explained by Facebook&#x27;s inability to get subscribers among the &#x27;Gen Z&#x27; group of 15 to 25-year-olds,&quot; says Vincent Reynaud-Lacroze of the agency&#x27;s French branch. </p><p>&quot;It&#x27;s become a bit of a platform for the &#x27;boomers&#x27;.&quot;</p><ul class="op-related-articles">	<li><a href="https://news.abs-cbn.com/business/11/05/21/metaverse-how-facebook-rebrand-reflects-a-dangerous-trend">Facebook rebrand reflects a dangerous trend in growing power of tech monopolies</a></li></ul><p>The firm has already tried to replicate the success of TikTok through its short-video Reels function, and borrowed inspiration from its own Instagram platform for its picture-led Stories function.</p><p>But neither addition has stopped the slump.</p><p>For branding expert Fongang, the bottom line is that TikTok and other platforms have the kind of functions that young people want.</p><p>&quot;The young generation, they&#x27;re fickle, they want content to move fast, with streaming and this ability to connect with strangers very quickly,&quot; she says.</p><p>&quot;If you think about Facebook and Instagram it&#x27;s about who you know in your space. Whether it&#x27;s Twitch or TikTok, you can have interaction with strangers and create something magical even if you don&#x27;t know them.&quot;</p><p>The stagnation with its Facebook platform at least partially explains the company&#x27;s decision to rebrand as Meta late last year, tying its future to the concept of the metaverse -- a 3-D internet fueled by virtual reality technology.</p><p>&quot;The metaverse is their core bet on the future,&quot; says analyst Bailey. &quot;They&#x27;re probably leading that race at the moment in terms of ad-based monetization.</p><p>&quot;If they can translate that success into this new area then what happened over the past couple of days will be of less concern for them.&quot; </p><p>cla-jxb/har</p><div><strong>© Agence France-Presse</strong></div>

Goodbye Facebook, Hello TikTok? Meta slump reignites debate over attracting younger audiences

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Goodbye Facebook, Hello TikTok? Meta slump reignites debate over attracting younger audiences

Clara Lalanne and Joseph Boyle,

Agence France-Presse

Published Feb 04, 2022 07:32 AM PHT

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