Even though many analysts point to concern about engagement on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB), Raymond James analysts say their survey suggests that the social network is still going strong. In fact, they report that Facebook is “the clear leader” in usage among the major social networks.
Survey favors Facebook
Analyst Aaron Kessler said they conducted an online survey of about 300 people to examine their usage of various websites. He reports that engagement on Facebook “remains steady.” He reported that 86% of the people in their survey use Facebook, and 18% of them expect to use it even more over the next 12 months. That’s compared to 22% from their March survey. He also reports that 14% of them expect to decrease usage, compared to 21% in the earlier survey, and 67% expect to keep using it about the same amount.
According to Kessler, by taking increase of usage and subtracting the decrease of usage, there’s a 4% positive amount in November. That’s compared to a 1% increase in March and a 2% increase in September 2012.
The analyst also looked at Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)-owned Instagram and found that of the one-third of those surveyed who use it, 40% of them plan to increase usage, compared to 7% who plan to decrease usage. He said these amounts are roughly consistent with what they found in their March survey.
The Raymond James survey found that Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) remained “the clear leader” in social networking websites, with 86% of those who participated using the site. LinkedIn Corp (NYSE:LNKD) was second with 49%, while Pinterest had 34% of their survey participants using it. Twitter Inc (NYSE:TWTR) followed Pinterest with 32%, while Google+ had 28% of their participants using it. Instagram was last with 27%.
Kessler noted that Twitter could see rapid growth, with 27% of those using the site saying they plan to increase their usage of it. That’s compared to 33% in March. The survey suggested about 10% plan to decrease their usage of it.
