It seems that you can’t go more than a day or two without seeing a new article about Facebook falling out of favor with teens. Heck, I’ve even written a few myself over the past several months. According to a new study, however, teens are still using Facebook, and at a growing rate. The survey was done by GlobalWebIndex, and is a very large survey. They conducted 170,000 online interviews in 32 countries, giving the results a lot of credibility.
The study shows that Facebook is used by 48.5% of 16-19 year olds on a monthly basis. Compare this to YouTube, which came in second place, and is only used by 29% of this age group, or Twitter at 26% (3rd place). While the largest group of users accessing Facebook is those from 25-34 years old, younger users are still very active on the social network.
Tumblr, Instagram and YouTube all have young people using their site the most, but it is at a smaller total number than Facebook.
The survey also gathered information about the usage of the most popular social sites over time. Facebook’s mobile app was used by 68% of users in Q2 of 2013, and 69% in Q4 of the same year, indicating that the popularity of the mobile app is still rising for Facebook. Other mobile apps also grew in popularity, with YouTube going from 57% to 59% and Google+ taking over the third place position for mobile moving from 35% to 37%.
Despite all the talk about apps like Snapchat, their use is still very low, rating at only 4% usage. Of course, SnapChat is also a very young app compared to sites like YouTube and Facebook.
The survey has a lot of great information that can help marketers identify where their target audience is spending a lot of time, and determine which type of marketing or advertising will be most effective.
You can see the survey results HERE, thought viewing the full report requires a subscription.
What do you think about this information? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
