Getting Users to Stick
Facebook is currently testing a second News Feed. Yes, as if we needed more feeds, Facebook’s looking for this second feed to serve content it thinks you might be interested in. The goal of the test is to see if users are interested in a “complementary feed of popular articles, videos, and photos, customized for each person based on content that might be interesting to them.” In other words, Facebook wants to give you content you may not have opted into, but it thinks you’d enjoy based on your behavior.
It’s all in the name of keeping you on the platform and not going anywhere else.
The Battle for Time, Not Users
The social networks know they aren’t going to corner the user market, as much as they might try. People have more diverse social footprints than ever. The average user maintains 5.54 social accounts, so the battle isn’t just to grow users.
Social networks are in an arms race to make themselves as sticky as possible, and one key aspect of creating stickiness isn’t creating connections between your friends. It’s the third-party content shared on the platform. This is what has driven Snapchat to launch Snapchat Discover. This is what’s driving Twitter to test the waters on letting users sync their Twitter accounts with their TV providers to stream live TV on the platform. This is why Facebook is testing a second News Feed focused on content discovery. The groundwork for Facebook to do this has been being laid for some time with Instant Articles and other efforts to court publishers.
The social networks are working to keep users on their platforms longer. That’s something for advertisers to evaluate. It’s not just about the number of users. The time they spend on platforms and the content they consume creates multiple opportunities per session to reach and interact with users.