Has the seemingly unstoppable rise of Facebook come to a shuddering halt? A newly published survey from online market research firm YouGov claims that Facebook usage in the UK has dropped 9% over the past year. Dissatisfaction with social media marketing messages and discomfort about third parties using their information were among the factors uncovered by the YouGov SixthSense survey of 1,995 adults carried out in March.
The survey findings are a wake-up call for those marketing professionals who see social media as just another platform for broadcasting brand messaging. Anyone with experience of online publishing knows that click-through rates for ads in discussion forums are far lower than for other types of content. When people are engaged in online interactions with others, they're not in the mood to be distracted by off-topic messages. Participants who feign engagement while promoting their own agenda are even less well tolerated. Why should social media be any different?
It shouldn't be a surprise therefore that the survey found just one in twenty Facebook users could recall clicking on an ad in the past year, while fewer than one in ten were impressed by the relevance of targeted advertising on social media. A third of respondents say they often switch off updates from companies for posting too frequently.
Collecting "likes" could prove to be a fools' errand too. While 45% of survey respondents said they had liked or joined the page of a company, 34% did so out of a desire to get something in return.
Facebook has disputed the survey's findings, stating that its own figures show UK monthly active user numbers continued to increase in March, rising from an already astonishing 33 million recorded in December. Whatever the truth of the numbers, YouGov research director James McCoy is right to conclude that engaging those users requires "a savvier approach."
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