From Never Enough to Niche: How User Purpose Is Getting Specific

When Facebook was first introduced to college students in 2004, it had a purpose and a target. College students could connect and share images and messages. Over time, the Facebook demographic widened, no longer requiring college emails but opening it up to anyone. This still only appealed to youth, but over time businesses caught on and in turn older generations. Pokes and pictures were followed by gift giving, pages, apps, music, notes and Zynga online games. In 2012 there were over one billion active users from across the globe. And now, everyone hates it. Why?

The service hasn’t necessarily changed. Sure, ads are now a concern, timeline has been introduced and soon Graph Search will supposedly change everything again, but the concept of promoting yourself and sharing content remains the same.

What’s different is the culture surrounding Facebook. They are no longer the only big fish in the tank, and more than that, users are no longer intrigued with simply being somewhere.

Facebook is the early generation of mass adopters. For that reason, they contain everyone, especially those that don’t know why they’re there. From there, more specific platforms were developed for a specific purpose: Twitter focuses on syndicating content in under 140 characters, Instagram beautifies our ugly faces, LinkedIn promotes our professional experience—all of this is in ADDITION to networking.

Networking, the act of connecting and maintaining a presence, is no longer a reason to be somewhere. You need a message or reason for being there. Businesses that have succeeded on social networks know this. And users are not close behind.

There was a time when being everywhere was a must—both for businesses and affluent users of social media. But now there has finally reached a level of saturation in the marketplace. Smart businesses aren’t blindly following competitors onto platforms that don’t contain their target demographic or conform to the restrictions of their brand. Users with clout aren’t on a network because their friends are—they’re there for a focused purpose.

And this purpose can be fun. SnapChat, a photo/video messaging application that automatically deletes after a few seconds, is a perfect example of this. While light-years from the growth issues of Facebook, they’ve zeroed in on a fundamental craving for social sharing without responsibility and exploded their following.  It’s simple, focused and it works.

LinkedIn has been incredibly successful because of how necessary and focused its service is. It has added many widgets to improve connectivity and professional validity but also has done an excellent job listening to their audience when their additions rock the boat too hard.

Usability is clutch, and not losing focus on why your platform exists.

People feel guilty being somewhere without purpose. Without it we dwell on ourselves and call each other narcissists, when really people are and always have been narcissistic; they just don’t want to feel like they are. Purpose gives us that veil.

So where did Facebook go wrong? Who the hell knows, however, it’s notable to mention Facebook has gotten larger and not necessarily more relevant to our lives. Their purpose has remained stagnant while the culture has shifted. And adding more widgets onto its platform has not changed its purpose. In fact, it’s damaged its previous one. By adding so many functions to a platform, it has created an all consuming monster of information that is slow, spammy and above all, segments user purpose. And like any good marketer will tell you, too many choices cost you bottom line.