Facebook faces exodus of younger audience
Facebook is losing ground among teens and young adults, according to eMarketer’s latest figures. In the US its latest forecast reveals that, while the platform is still growing its daily user figures among older audiences, growth among 12 to 17 year-olds and 18 to 24 year-olds are both set to drop faster than previously predicted. This could result in Facebook losing as many as two million users under-25, with many though to favour a move to Snapchat over Instagram.
In the UK, Facebook is set to experience an eight percent drop in usage figures among 12 to 17 year-olds and a drop of more than five percent among 18 to 24 year-olds. Once again, it’s Snapchat which is picking up the valuable younger demographic. However, the number of total Facebook users in the UK is still set to reach an impressive 32.6 million in 2018.
Snapchat opens analytics to creators
In the past, Snapchat has only allowed content creators to see daily Story view counts – which they would then have to be sure to note at the end of each 24 hour period, before it disappeared. Now the photo-sharing platform has opened up a wealth of analytics options to tens of thousands creators with large followings. The new insights include audience demographics, time spent viewing Stories, completion rates and more.
Snap attempts to lure advertisers with free ads
As part of ongoing plans to attract more advertisers, Snap is looking to poach those buying vertical video ads from its competition by offering “several hundred dollars” in free advertising credits to those willing to give Snapchat a go. While the scheme is technically open to advertisers who have bought vertical ads anywhere online in recent months, Instagram is considered to be the favoured target for Snapchat’s drive to acquire fresh ad revenue.
Facebook introduces colourful public to-do lists
From New Year’s Resolutions, to your weekly shopping list – users everywhere will soon be able to add their own colourful public to-do list to their Facebook profile. As the ‘slow’ global rollout continues, both numerical and bullet point format list will become available to select when creating a new status. Debates are ongoing about whether this move is part of Facebook’s plans to make its platform more user-focused, or a sly way of collecting more insightful data on its users, but either way – the possibilities for us list-lovers will be endless.
Facebook brings Stories photo editing to desktop
In its latest move to make Stories more appealing, Facebook has introduced a dedicated photo editing feature for desktop users. It can be accessed by clicking the “Edit Photo” button in the right bottom corner in Stories, and gives the option for several different fonts and colour styles.
