Is Social Marketing On Facebook Over?

Could this be the beginning of the end for mega social networking site Facebook? Probably not. However, the social network’s growth has slowed down considerably in the U.S. and Canada over the last 2 months.

According to a report from Inside Facebook, “the United States lost nearly 6 million users, falling from 155.2 million at the start of May to 149.4 million at the end of it. This is the first time the country has lost users in the past year. Canada also fell significantly, by 1.52 million down to 16.6 million, although it has been fluctuating around that number for the past year.”

With almost 700 million users, the network is still a viable marketing opportunity for businesses around the world. The dropping numbers may simply be the first sign of a shift to a more specific demographic of users. Remember Myspace? It first became the “go to” destination for teens and young adults and then later shifted to mostly music lovers and bands.

Facebook continues to grow, though mostly in countries that are just getting access to the social network. However, the diminishing numbers in the U.S. don’t surprise me. A myriad of concerns continue to surface around privacy and access to personal information. There was even a “commit to quit” day on May 31, where hundreds of users agreed to cancel their Facebook account because of changes to the company’s privacy policy.

Why do you think Facebook’s numbers are dropping in North America?