Youth Prefer Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook

Some interesting facts have emerged from eMarkter's most recent mobile forecast regarding how the young are using social media sites. The most important finding is that younger social media users prefer Instagram and Snapchat over Facebook.

Facebook has 14.5 million users in the 12-17 year old demographic, but Snapchat has 15.8 million in the same age group. Instagram lags behind both with about 4.2 million users in this age group. However, among 18-24 year old users, Instagram has almost the same number as both Facebook and Snapchat with Instagram having 22.1 million, Snapchat 24.4 million, and Facebook coming in at 23.5 million. These statistics are for U.S. users of these social media sites only.

This information is crucial for marketers because it guides them as they make decisions about where to spend ad money and how to organize marketing campaigns.

A forecasting analyst at eMarketer, Oscar Orozco said in a recent statement, "Teens and tweens are moving to Instagram and Snapchat. These groups are less engaged at Facebook where they do not log in as often and spend less time when they do log in. We also have many 'Facebook-nevers' - children in the tween age group who are not going to Facebook at all but still are using Instagram, which is owned by Facebook."

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