24 Sep Tell Me Again How Facebook Doesn’t Have a Teen Problem?
In my 2013 book, “Earn It. Don’t Buy It: The CMO’s Guide to Social Media Marketing in a Post Facebook World,” I argued that Facebook had a significant teen problem. We said it again and again.
Soon groups I respect like Forrester and Edison Research were saying, “Wait, this is hype. Facebook doesn’t have a teen problem. They’re still number one.” Their research flew in the face of what everyone with teenage kids sort of innately knew: Facebook had peaked for that set and was on a rather steep downward trajectory.
Today, we have even more proof of that in this simple chart.
But Why Does Facebook Need to “Reach” Teens
I was asked the following on Twitter this morning:
@jtobin @HalftimeJay the data has little value unless they NEED to reach teens. Why does it matter?
— George Seybold (@GeorgeSeybold) September 24, 2014
Facebook needs to reach teens because its advertisers need to reach teens. If Facebook is now a far less effective place to market to teens, the budget to reach those teens goes away.
In addition, teens are the leaders in terms of trends for most social network usage. If they’re caring less now, the rest of us will likely care less in the next few months. That, my friends, is Facebook’s real problem.
