As social media is engrained in daily life, the team at Here I Am continues to think about how people remain engaged with their social media platforms. We have posted a number of times on this topic as we work to design an app rooted in a social media feed but focused on keeping engagement high. 

Check out our past blog on social media fatigue here.

To best understand why people remain engaged, we like to understand what the most common reasons for leaving are. A recent study of Gen Z – those born from 1994 to 2000 and are the first generation to grow up with smartphones – provides some clues as to what is needed within a platform to stay engaged. Three items jumped out for us: 

1) Stay Positive in the feed-  35% of Gen Z’ers have dropped off a social media platform due to too much negativity.  This can come from friends or what the targeted algorithm passes along unkonwingly.  

2) Find a way to keep the feed interesting-  About 30% of people drop off because they no longer find the content compelling. Posting new content from a wide variety of sources remains key for people to keep engaging with a social media platform.   

3) Avoid commercialization- 18% felt the social media platform’s primary purpose was to sell them things.  This is a true statement – the purpose of free social media is to sell items to the engaged population.   

Ensuring a social media platform (and home feed) avoids these pitfalls will drive the most people to remain engaged for an extended duration of time.   

References: 

Here I Am Blog, May 20,2020 – Social Media Fatigue 

Origin/ Hill Holiday report for Gen Z:  Meet gen Z: the social generation