“Despite the scandals, marketers still see Facebook as a highly effective advertising medium. It’s the largest social network in the world, so it doesn’t make sense for them to move off the platform,” said Jasmine Enberg, senior analyst at eMarketer. “That said, user engagement is plateauing, so marketers are also looking at other platforms, particularly Instagram, to augment their social media marketing efforts.”
Should Facebook Be Worried?
Through a turbulent year, Facebook has maintained a robust audience size and ad business. But signs of distrust are cropping up.
In an August 2018 survey of 1,079 adult US internet users conducted by Janrain, nearly one-third of respondents said that internet companies like Google and Facebook are the least trustworthy to protect personal data. And in an April 2018 survey of 2,772 adult US internet users by Recode, more than half of respondents said that Facebook is the company that they least trust with their personal information.