Is Instagram killing Facebook? What financial marketers need to know…

What was once a platform primarily for selfies and pop culture iconography has become the fastest-growing social media platform in the world and a valuable network for banks and credit unions. With only so much money and time to spend on social media, should financial marketers dump Facebook in favor of Instagram?

Let’s be clear. No one truly thinks Facebook will go the way of Myspace. It has immense legacy power in the world of social media and is used by three-fourths of the U.S. adult population to connect with friends and family, read the news, share ideas, and learn about products and services. And the fact that Facebook owns Instagram rules out the idea of a direct head-to-head war for users and advertising revenues.

But the fact remains: Facebook usage overall has leveled off in the past three years, and now Instagram is the fastest-growing social media platform in the world. Facebook has been losing share in some select demographics in recent years, and the growing preference for Instagram by young people is making it increasingly attractive to financial marketers.

Pew Research Center reported Facebook usage among teenagers (13-17) plummeted from 71% to 51% in the space of three years. As of 2018 Facebook had fallen to fourth among the teen segment behind YouTube (85%), Instagram (72%) and Snapchat (69%). It’s likely that these social habits, once established, will continue as these young consumers become prime potential banking customers.

What is killing Facebook is too much commercialization, Nara Emdjian wrote in a Quora post. “Once a social media platform which was aimed at friendship and socialization,” Emdjian says, “today Facebook [is] all about control over content, making more money from ads and manipulating news feeds.”

 

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