Facebook's Challenger Brands -- Graeme Hutton

Two academic papers have recently been published that foretell the imminent implosion of Facebook One review was from Princeton and employed disease modeling to suggest that Facebook could lose up to 80 of users in the next three years The other was from University College London UCL a leading UK universityIn UCLamp8217s instance Professor Daniel Miller wrote a blog of his ethnographic research exploring social media use among teens Concluding that for this group amp8220 Facebookamp8230 is basically dead and buried amp8221 Professor Miller was observing that dreaded moment when a teen discovers that mom wants to friend them on Facebook and the mental terror of how to respond that ensuesIn truth we think the likelihood of Facebook going down the tubes in the next few years is remote Yet Professor Milleramp8217s remarks do prompt the question What exactly is happening to Facebook and other social media among the USamp8217s younger population today Given Facebookamp8217s greater strength among older teens we focused on 1820sItamp8217s Mobile Mobile MobileMobile is rapidly becoming the preferred entry point to social media Currently for 1820s Facebook is accessed 52 of the time via mobile Twitter 54 Instagram 68 and Snapchat 98 according to comScore As such trends based on computeruse only would be misleading We decided to probe comScoreamp8217s unified mobile and computer data which became available from February 2013 To do this we constructed a map comparing social media use from February to December 2013 This is what the map revealedamp160Social Media Map Trends Across FebDec 2013 for 1820samp160The diagonal dotted red line is the equilibrium line Above this line sites are growing for this audience below the line they are in decline If Facebook was in rapid decline it wouldnamp8217t currently enjoy its exclusive position in the top right corner of the map which is precisely where a towering social media site would reside Nevertheless given that Facebook is slightly below the equilibrium line its grip on this audience appears to be slipping slightly over the period we were reviewing Facebookamp8217s monthly reach dropped from 93 to 86A Crucible of Burgeoning Social MediaArguably whatamp8217s more interesting on this map is what is happening in the bottom lefthand corner of the chart The sites highlighted in a blue font each have10 reach of 1820samp183 A growth rate of 100 among 1820s over the observed periodamp183 An affinity index among 1820s greater than 200This is the mapamp8217s hot area a crucible of burgeoning social media Five sites that particularly merit a shoutout includeamp183 Vine LabsSnapchatMashableStack ExchangeRedditEach of these sites has enjoyed 150 growth or more over the last year My own personal favorite is Vine It would be superficial for anyone to dismiss Vine as just a device that enables its users to post 6second video vignettes online Vine is attracting some extremely creative wunderkindsOne such wunderkind is Zack King who has curated a wide array of 6 videos on Vine displaying nothing short of visual wizardry For example in just six short seconds Zack demonstrates how to jump directly into a locked car or how to fly into bed and leave your clothes on top of the bedclothes or how to freeze your smartphone in midair For any budding creative ad directors who might think a 30 second video is too short a timelength for their creative outpourings take a look at Zack Kingamp8217s companion YouTube siteThe Future of Aspiring CompetitorsOverall although the sky isnamp8217t falling in for Facebook as some have predicted some new entrants in the social media universe have some impressive features with content and growth rates to match Facebookamp8217s previous strategy has often been to acquire the best in class of these aspiring competitors but if these new players can maintain substantial growth rates in two to three yearsamp8217 time some could become challenger brands to the onceinvincible FacebookHowever rather than becoming megabrands itamp8217s probably time to realize that social media is maturing and segmenting and so itamp8217s more likely they will establish new major niches in this market If nothing else broader social media such as Facebook for consumers and in turn LinkedIn for business will have a key role as our de facto allencompassing address booksGraeme Hutton is SVP Group Partner Research at UM Graeme came from the UK to the US in the late 90s and his only regret is that he did not do it sooner Graeme joined UM in 2006 At UM he has engineered and activated a broadbased set of integrated communications and consumer insight tools which dovetail into the agencyamp8217s burgeoning arsenal of media research products and systems Graeme can be reached at Graemehuttonumwwcomamp160Read all Graeme39s MediaBizBloggers commentaries at Curious Thoughts from Curious Mindsamp160Check us out on Facebook at MediaBizBloggerscomFollow our Twitter updates at MediaBizBloggeramp160The opinions and points of view expressed in this commentary are exclusively the views of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of MediaBizBloggerscom management or associated bloggers MediaBizBloggers is an open thought leadership platform and readers may share their comments and opinions in response to all commentaries

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