Social networks are quite firmly established in everyday life. Facebook has been the world's leading social service for several years. However, recent studies of the American Internet space have shown that it is beginning to lose popularity.
The latest data from the American Consumer Satisfaction Index (ACSI) shows that Facebook scored 61 and Google+ 78, on par with Wikipedia. Thus, Facebook's customer satisfaction index fell by 7.6%, while receiving low ratings in the "e-business" section.
At the same time, the social network from Google was launched last year, and the majority of users are forced to use Facebook due to the fact that its audience is more than three times larger. Google+ is constantly introducing new features in the battle for users. The latest innovations are known: support for Google Maps, the YouTube video service, the Google + graph algorithm that unites different social networks through user data.
Google+ is doing well in UI, and Facebook is doing well in market penetration. At the same time, the large number of advertisements on the Mark Zuckerberg network and the new display of the TimeLine profile cause discontent among users. Google+ has dropped the advertising model. And this gives an audience growth of almost 30% every month, versus a 15% decline in Facebook.
CNN quotes a user: “I am sure that many people use Facebook because they sincerely love it. But many also use the network because they have to: their friends have accounts there or they need a business presence on the network. Maybe these Facebook users really don't like it and have something to complain about."
Charles Fornell Chairman of ACSI says e-business must be responsive to user expectations, needs and loyalty. Users should have a choice; this makes a lot of sense for financial performance.
So, Facebook needs to pay attention to the strong competition from Google+ in order not to lose its leading position.
Overall, on the ACSI index, social media received 69 points, losing 1.4%.
