There has been an 87 percent decline in the search volume for the term Facebook in the last decade, media reports said.
Aging up of the app’s audience, growing disinterest in the social media site, coupled with the TikTok boom, is behind the waning interest in global Facebook searches, Banklesstimes.com reported.
Several market studies have shown that Facebook is not able to attract users under 30 years. The social media site is losing traction among teenage and young adult users across its key markets despite rebranding to Meta. From 1.93 billion daily users in Q3 2021, the number of users further fell to 1.929 billion in Q4, the report said.
This has been exacerbated as upcoming competitors join the market.
In February, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg blamed the company for losing its users because of the TikTok boom – currently leading in the short-form user-generated video market.
Although Meta, which also owns Instagram and WhatsApp, has also been offering Reels on the photo and video sharing app, they have not leveled up to Tiktok’s engagements, the report said.
According to Zuckerberg, the firm is working to introduce its short video product to try and outdo TikTok.
Further, Apple’s “app-tracking transparency” feature, introduced in 2021 with version 14.5 of its iOS mobile operating system, is adding to Facebook’s woes, the report said.
iPhone users are expected to provide explicit consent for user-level and device ID-based monitoring by apps.
Even though several users have declined to share this information en-masse, the development has shaken Facebook advertisers who rely on social networks to sustain their firms, the report said.
Several advertisers have moved away from Facebook, and TikTok is becoming extremely popular since it’s more affordable from a cost-per 1,000 impressions basis.
As a result, Facebook has lost $10bn in advertising revenue. The figure is almost 9 percent of the firm’s 2021 revenues. This is significant since it’s a quarter of its overall annual profit, the report said.
