Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said that he has redirected teams within his company to “make serving young adults their north star.” The CEO affirmed that the directive will be more than lip service and admitted that the changes could take years but believes that doing so is “the right approach.”
Mark Zuckerberg said this during a call with investors. He expresses concern about declining usage of Facebook services among teens and young adults, saying that so much of the company’s services have gotten dialed to be the best for most people who use them, rather than specifically for young adults. He thereby suggested that teams within his company should “make serving young adults their north star.
The Facebook CEO is expecting the changes he wants to happen to take years and to even affect the usage of older Facebook users. He, however, believes that doing so is the right approach for his company to take.
Face said it is retooling its team to make serving young adults its North Star rather than optimizing for the larger number of older people.
Facebook has faced robust competition for young users from TikTok, which Zuckerberg called “one of the most effective competitors we have ever faced.” So, one of the changes will be a shift toward videos like TikTok.
While the details are largely talked about, for now, it’s clear that Facebook has been thinking and planning this before now. There were leaked Facebook documents showing the company’s alarm at seeing declining usage, with a precipitous drop predicted in the years ahead. The documents also show ideas Facebook considered to increase usage among younger users, including revamped groups, job finding tools, and “mood feeds.”