Facebook is fast losing its appeal among the teens with Snapchat emerging the benefactor, a new study by eMarketer has revealed.
The shift in loyalties can also be considered natural given that Snapchat has always been designed for the teens and the young adults. Facebook, in contrast, has no such well-defined user base but requires its members to be at least 13 to have an account on its site. However, more than half of American teens are expected to switch over to Snapchat this year itself.
Also, what should be further disappointing for Facebook is that all those who will be backing off from the social platform won’t be joining Instagram, also owned by Facebook. While Instagram is expected to have around 1.6 million more users this year, the same for Snapchat will be higher at 1.9 million.
As for reasons for the shift, eMarketer believes it is the Snapchat’s focused approach towards the teens and young adults that is working in its favor. In contrast, Facebook is more of a general nature that is open to all. Not surprisingly, Facebook has emerged the world’s largest social networking site with over 2 billion users.
That again is a huge congregation of people from all around the world which makes Facebook so much more crowded.
It also is more of a family oriented site where everyone from aunts and uncles to grandmother and grandfathers having a presence. That also is another factor that is not to the liking of the younger lot who prefer to keep their activities off the prying eyes of their parents and elders. Rather, they’d like to have something that is more unique, something they can uniquely identify with.
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The shift is also interesting in light of Facebook incorporating several of Snapchat’s unique features on its various subsidiary sites like Instagram. While that has pushed Instagram as a likely destination that the younger will like to get along with, Snapchat still seems to hold on to its appeal among its intended clientele.
So the bottom line is, Facebook is the old people network while Snapchat is for the young and trendy.
