In an epidemic sweeping the globe, Australia has become the
next country to submit to “Facebook fatigue.”
The Facebook ad tools are reporting that Australian users
have dropped from 11.8m in December 2012 to 11.5m in late April. While this has
not been confirmed by Facebook Australia (who cite the number of 12m monthly
active Australian users), this is a trend that has been seen world-wide. In
2011, estimates placed that 6m US users had deactivated their Facebook account,
while in the UK 600,000 deactivated their accounts in one month alone.
Many things have been cited as the reason for “Facebook
fatigue,” including continuing security issues that have plagued the social
network, homogeneous news and views, and the proliferation of Facebook
advertising.
Security Issues
Possibly the biggest issue that have people on Facebook
worried is that of security. More than once, status posts have gone viral
promoting a message of how to change your privacy, that if you post a certain
message with key (fake) legal elements then Facebook cannot use your images or
data, or accounts of how people have had their profiles hacked, stolen, or
copied. This has even led to a movie (and following TV show) about who is real
on Facebook – in fact one girl in our office has had her photos taken and a
fake profile created.
The other side of the security issue is that of online
tracking and data collection, which we will cover in more detail in point
three.
Homogeneous News and
Views
One issue that is driving users away from Facebook is the
apparent “same-ness” that people are encountering each day. While this is not
an issue that the network can address per se, it is still something that is
affecting their user base. Facebook lends itself to allowing the user to
interact with like-minded peers – if you don’t have something in common with a
person, you probably wouldn’t be their “friend.”
Proliferation of
advertising
The newest and most widely-referred to issue causing
Facebook fatigue is the proliferation of advertising on the site. Both desktop
and mobile users are reporting that the sheer amount of targeted advertising
being sent their way is causing them to engage less with the medium. This is
where the security and tracking issue comes back to the fore – while targeted
ads are great from an advertiser point of view, I can honestly say that,
despite being interested in “women” as a profile point, as a male with the
relationship status of “married”, I’m actually not all that interested in being
told about single Russian ladies looking for love. Then again, I was served an
ad last week to help me get more gigs as a magician, which is interesting in
the fact that nothing in my Facebook profile even relates to magic. And despite
the fact I have gay friends and family members, I may not be interested in the
same pages, events, and products that they are.
This way we can understand the fatigue plaguing young adults
in the Facebook landscape. The now media-savvy young adult does not want a
message yelled at them through sponsored posts and stories, or even what could
be construed as offensive Facebook Marketplace ads.
What this means for us: As
a predominantly retail company we are generally in the clear when it comes to
annoying ads and issues across the media. While different business areas have
had Facebook issues in the past this is still one of the best media to target
specific consumers with specific behaviours, personalities, and “Likes.” The
main thing we need to follow is whether Facebook fatigue continues, and whether
it is measurable for mobile vs. desktop users, and tailor our Facebook
advertising accordingly.
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