Facebook and Recent User Loss – What’s Our Backup Plan?

The Washington Post just shared a startling headline: Facebook loses users for the first time in its history.

“Facebook lost daily users for the first time in its 18-year history — falling by about half a million users in the last three months of 2021, to 1.93 billion logging in each day“

Last October, when Facebook and Instagram went offline for almost an entire day, businesses who were depending on the reliability of the platform’s visibility, lost millions of dollars.

Could that one day have created the ripple effect behind the overall loss of users for the first time in Facebook’s 18 year history?

After surviving the initial shelter in place from the worldwide pandemic, most businesses have learned to rely on social media networking platforms as a resource, creating the spotlight to shine within. However, when that light went dark, it became readily apparent that we all needed a backup plan.

The adage of not putting all of your eggs in one basket rings true.

When Facebook’s parent Meta published their quarterly earnings report on Wednesday (2/2/22) it revealed a startling statistic: For the first time ever, the company’s growth is stagnating around the world.

As a social media during disaster related events expert, my greatest hope for all of us worldwide is that this stagnation could be based on the realization that we need secondary platforms to ensure we’re always available for our customers.

Perhaps the decline in numbers means we are planning ahead by creating an alternative source of light, an alternative visibility and subscribing, focusing our time and efforts on building up our other platforms.

Perhaps, we are coming to realize that having multiple platforms, using them in their unique voice and reaching people through multiple avenues, is our best opportunity to ensure success.

What was previously a side job, posting this and that to social media, has now become a full time senior level area of expertise and self-education, whereby certificates and degrees become outdated once achieved due to increasing technological updates and changes.

Maybe we are realizing as business owners, NPOs, and agencies that our voices can only go so far on one venue, that’s why having multiple platforms, and multiple people who specialize within those platforms could be the key to unlocking success over a longer period of time. That way, if and when Facebook or other platforms have another hiccup, we won’t be in the dark, shut out of the light – maybe, we’ll have the ability to find a new source and shine brighter.

According to resources, the decline is more likely suggesting that the company’s product is saturated globally — and that its long quest to add as many users as possible has peaked. Which in and of itself sounds more realistic –

My hope is that we’ll all take steps to ensure our online business presences are built on solid foundation, that is wider than taller, encompassing many different anchors and tethers to the source.