- 70% of black adults use Facebook
- 29% of people between 18-34 years of age will reportedly delete Facebook
Social media giant Facebook (FB +1.29%), the platform most used by African Americans is also at the top of the delete list. How valuable is the black community to Facebook?
Why This Matters: Black people are the most prolific group of social media users and tend to lead the patterns and trends shaping the landscape. Pew research found 70% of black adults use Facebook, 43% are on Instagram and 26% use Twitter (TWTR +0.51%), far outpacing any other ethnic groups.
Herein lies the problem for Facebook, a recent survey from UBS (UBS +2.98%) notes Facebook along with Twitter are the apps most likely to be deleted among adults. Specifically in the coveted 18-34 age range where 29% of survey respondents will reportedly delete Facebook and 28% will delete Twitter.
Based on the UBS survey younger audiences prefer a more personalized advertising experience which will become more difficult as people continue to update their privacy settings on Facebook to be more restrictive. About 28% of users plan to update their privacy settings, which the UBS analyst attributes to the recent negative press with regards to Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica issue.
It all boils down to getting and keeping as many users as possible to increase advertising revenue, an area where Facebook owns outsized dominance. In Q1 the company showed the resilience of its advertising prowess and brought in $11.97 billion. The social media frontrunner is forecast to control 18% of the global digital advertising market this year, according to research firm eMarketer.
Situational Awareness: The question is whether the new advertising transparency requirements, developer platform crackdown and Facebook’s quest to make using it healthier will deter black people from using the platform. Some of these changes could deter advertisers, give users less functionality to play with and remove low-quality viral content that might make users feel bad but keeps them scrolling.
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