Informative

The Next Ad’s Opinion On Facebook Usage Reports

Much has been made in the media about the apparent decline in Facebook usage across many countries around the world. However, we don’t think it can be concluded in such simple fashion as there are several factors that need to be considered when assessing the social network’s overall performance and popularity amongst users. So we decided to speak to The Next Ad’s Managing Director, Bob, and Senior Digital Marketing Consultant, Oscar, to get their thoughts on this subject.

Their thoughts...

Bob Christiaanse, The Next Ad’s Managing Director started off by explaining that “Facebook is not just a social network anymore. It’s a company that owns multiple networks and offers much more than just the network Facebook. The notion that the Facebook network is losing members in The Netherlands may be true, however, its host of networks is still continuously growing and that is, in my opinion, the real thing to focus on.”

"It's the speed of information that is constantly increasing and growing which demands networks that are more capable of handling this speed and providing a more visual way of presenting content,” said Bob. “This is also an important reason why Instagram is growing so fast. So I don't see a decline in Facebook as a company, I see a company that is one step ahead of the market and that has made a couple of acquisitions in the past few years, allowing it to answer to the needs that people have these days."

We then turn to Oscar Kooij, The Next Ad’s Senior Digital Marketing Consultant, for his expert views on the situation, who explains that Facebook is still the place to be for online users as well as social advertisers. “Firstly let’s look at some figures, approximately 1.52 billion people log onto Facebook every day and are considered daily active users, whilst there are over 2.3 billion monthly users. You simply can’t ignore these facts.”

He continued by adding: “We’ve been able to scale and grow small and large customers who have a high percentage of Facebook share in their overall marketing strategy. It’s all about setting up your marketing funnel perfectly and making sure you serve a relevant message based on the stage your (potential) customer is in.”

Turning back to Bob, he used Google as an example to explain why people shouldn’t make any rash assumptions without looking at the full picture. “The same goes for Google for instance. They have an amazing variety of networks/products and though some of their products may stop existing at some point, new networks/products, that would be able to fill this gap, are constantly being launched or in development. Therefore, they will continue to add value to consumers and when they are in, there will be added value for advertisers.”

He concluded by explaining: “I wouldn’t look at trends of different, individual networks to see if they are growing or declining. I’m looking at the overall picture to see if companies such as Google and Facebook are able to continue to add value in the market, without depending on a single network, but rather on the sum of people that are using one of their networks or products.”

“Consequently, advertisers shouldn’t be asking IF you can reach your audience, but rather WHERE can you reach your audience and adjust their strategy and content to the places where you can reach them. And more importantly: adjust to the speed of content consumption in order to always remain relevant and successful.”

So what do you think about this, do you agree? We would love to hear your thoughts on this topic! And would you like to stay up to date with The Next Ad’s latest news, updates, blogs and more? Simply click on the button below to subscribe to our monthly newsletter!