Drugi jezik na kojem je dostupan ovaj članak: Bosnian
By: Marijana Kraljević, Community Manager, Dialog Komunikacije
Arrival of diverse and specialized services has influenced the way of using social media. While once users used exclusively big names like Facebook for posting their content, today they can choose between publishing photos via Instagram, blogging via Reddit, or using messaging apps. One consequence of this development is a new trend that has caused quite a stir in the media, the so-called content collapse which means that the user becomes less and less likely to share their posts on some of the major social networks. For example, Facebook has not seen a decrease in the number of visits to the platform, but there seems to have been a decline in the ratio for users who actively post content. At the same time, smaller, fast-growing or more specialized services such as Instagram are recording growth in this field. Of course, this does not mean that Facebook users are shying from interaction – the platform can still boast with one of the highest levels of engagement, such as sharing or reading of articles, watching videos and alike. This is corroborated by the fact that about 8 out of 10 users like content on Facebook, and 58% of them watch at least one video a month.
But the question arises how will messaging apps fare in this sense, and can they be susceptible to this trend? When it comes to sharing content, it seems that switching to smaller and more controlled audiences has become an advantage for many users, and that’s exactly what chat apps offer. In support of this it should be pointed out that WhatsApp users are over 60% more likely to share a photo on the messaging app than Facebook users on Facebook. Also, Facebook Messenger and WeChat also have a significant advantage compared to Facebook and Twitter when it comes to sending photos. Instagram is the only one that follows in this trend, with a firm second place, but its focus on sharing photos and the ability to easily control followers are the obvious reasons for this.
In general, when it comes to the frequency of visits, chat apps can also boast with more engaged users. Here the WhatsApp stands out because about 3 out of 4 users use this app at least once a day, and more than half of them checks it several times a day, giving the app a thin advantage over Facebook, Facebook Messenger, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat. Also, about 7 out of 10 users of WhatsApp share photos at least once a month, while this figure for Messenger goes just over 50%, and 40% for Snapchat. WhatsApp also firmly holds the lead with messaging and video sharing. Without a doubt, WhatsApp’s simple and clear nature gives it an advantage over competitive platforms that are more comprehensive, with more features and functions.
Although the path to monetization requires from platforms to be as open as possible, with more functionality, it is clear that if you are turning to the service where the focus is more and more extras and options like the approach adopted by Snapchat, you risk encouraging passive behavior in users. It is crucial to bear this in mind, given that all of these apps look to develop into a fully fledged social platform. Content collapse may have begun on the major social networks, but its next stop could just be the messaging app.
Source: GlobalWebIndex