Facebook’s erosion problem: Digital consumption share is dropping as other platforms gain
Last month, Mark Zuckerberg admitted that time spent was down on Facebook. He added that this was, actually, a good thing–that the platform’s intention is to get more active consumption and not just endless scrolling.
Now a new report from Pivotal shows just how much consumption has gone down for the social network. According to the analysis, which looked at Nielsen’s “digital content ratings, Facebook lost 4% in “aggregated time spent,” despite a 6% increase in users. The numbers, the report says, reflect an 11% “decline per person” through last November. Even with Instagram still showing healthy numbers for the company, Facebook’s overall consumption share dropped as other platforms saw big gains
Meanwhile, Google is booming. Pivotal says the company’s various platforms put together–which include YouTube and Waze–have seen upwards of a 70% increase in time spent every month. It currently accounts for 28.6% of the content consumed on digital, up from 23.7% in November 2016. Similarly, while Snap is still a tiny chunk of the overall consumption share, it still saw a growth rate of +65% year-over-year.
Facebook did warn shareholders that this sort of data was expected. Zuckerberg has emphasized that his goal for 2018 is to fix the platform where it’s broken and make for more meaningful connections between users. At the same time, this may give some pause, as it could indicate an upcoming tectonic shift in platform leaders.
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