There is an entire industry based on social media. In fact, today there are jobs (like mine) that didn’t exist five years ago. There are so many people around the world that invest their time, money, resources and strategy in social media, because it has shown to be most effective with little input. But what if the largest social network starts losing users? Well, it’s not a question of “what if”, it’s already happening.
Facebook has reported to have lost users in both the US and Canada. But, don’t panic just yet. A year ago, Facebook reported a total of 500 million users but today, it’s closing in on 700 million worldwide, so is there really a reason to panic over a loss of only 7.5 million users in the two North American countries? This article is also reporting losses in Norway and Russia. Will it be the start of a not-so-good trend for the industry?
Before we panic, there’s also more good news, other than the almost 200 million growth for the Social Network. There are reports of Facebook being the number one ad displayer in the world. Watch out Google AdWords! Like I said in a previous post, Google AdWords works under search engine keywords, but Facebook ads can be narrowly targeted: you can choose as specific groups of people as you wish them to be. Direct hit to the adequate market, no wonder Facebook is now the ad king.
So, no, I wouldn’t panic just yet. That loss in users in my opinion is under 1% of the total users. Let’s just hope is not the beginning of a major slope!