The parent company, Facebook Inc., should change its name these days, laying new foundations towards the stated goal of the “metaverse”. The social network of the same name, Facebook, is instead grappling with a new knot to solve: the real number of users. Yes, because as confirmed by the Wall Street Journal, which came into possession of internal documents from the Menlo Park company, Facebook is struggling to detect and know the exact number of users registered on the platform, considering that several people create more than one account. . And all this could have non-trivial repercussions on advertising campaigns, which remain one of the major sources of income for Mark Zuckerberg’s company.
The largest social network in the world
Facebook has 2.9 billion users, according to the latest estimates. A giant number, which makes it the largest social network in the world. But the unknown factor of double (or even triple) accounts is becoming more and more cumbersome. According to the Journal, an internal company document from the spring noted that among new accounts, it was a “very prevalent” circumstance for individual users to have multiple accounts. Facebook looked at some 5,000 recent registrations and found that between “32% and 56% were created by users who already had previous accounts,” according to the WSJ. But that’s not all, because another internal survey found that the number of Facebook users in the United States who are 20 years old and active on the platform at least once a month is often greater than the total population of Americans in that bracket. of age. And the same document says that this could mean that Facebook’s number of daily active users may be “less reliable” than official figures.
Reliable information?
The issue is the reliability of official information which then affects the spending decisions of some large advertisers. And if Facebook lets it know not to bill advertisers based on its estimates of an ad’s target audience, some advertisers look at those estimates when planning where to put their budgets, especially big brands that have turned to Facebook to reach a target. large audience. Potential reach metrics are “a starting point for our strategic conversation with our clients,” Darren D’Altorio, head of social media at Wpromote, a US-based digital marketing agency, told WSJ. “If your goal as an advertiser is to reach the most people at the lowest cost, then there would be a very real impact on whether that number is wrong.”
Facebook currently estimates that 11% of its monthly active users worldwide (2.9 billion) are duplicate accounts, with highest peaks in developing markets. And on its website for advertisers, the company points out that its estimate for an ad’s audience size depends in part on the number of accounts users have, but it doesn’t quantify its impact.
Something is not right
One of the central points of this story is that Facebook has long defined itself as a “real identity platform” and should prevent users from having more than one account. Unlike Twitter and other such unregulated platforms, the company requires users to have only one main account with a real name, often asking for identification. But obviously all this is not enough.