In recent months, the media has reported many backlashes from Meta, Facebook’s parent company. That summer, the company suffered a For the first time in its history, revenue is falling and on Wednesday she announced a Record layoffs of 11,000 employees. But acc a recent study by the digital marketing agency Ressac and the polling institute Léger, this has not prevented Facebook from remaining the most used social platform in the country.

In Canada, 83% of internet users have a Facebook account, compared to 77% on Messenger or 57% on Instagram, both of which platforms are also affiliated with Meta. In addition, 63% of Canadian internet users also have a YouTube account, 37% for Twitter and 27% for TikTok.

The messaging platform WhatsApp, which is popular in Latin America, Europe and Africa and also belongs to Meta, is only used by 39% of Canadian internet users, according to the same study.

This survey of 3,000 Canadians is also the most comprehensive portrait of social platform usage in the country “in years,” according to Sylvain Martel, vice president of media, partnerships and strategic development at Ressac.

Teens are leaving Facebook

However, Facebook’s undeniable popularity in Quebec is waning among young people. Among internet users who have a Facebook account, 73% of 35-55 year olds use the platform daily, compared to 56% of 16-24 year olds.

Also, 91% of internet users aged 16-24 have a YouTube account, 85% have an Instagram account, but only 79% have a Facebook account.

Nadia Seraiocco, lecturer and PhD student at the School of Media at the University of Quebec at Montreal (UQAM), specialist in social networks, believes that Facebook marked “a stroke of genius” by acquiring Instagram in 2017. “Young people had been moving from Facebook to Instagram and more recently TikTok for more than five years. On Instagram, you’re seeing more of a shift in language and youth-specific subcultures,” she says.

Quebec, more “conventional”

“The famous concept of two solitudes is also very real in the world of social media,” Pablo Stevenson, President and CEO of Ressac, presented the report’s findings in a webinar on Thursday. “Quebec has a lesser presence on Instagram, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Twitter and Reddit compared to the rest of Canada,” the document said.

Mr. Stevenson claims that Quebecers use more “conventional” platforms, notably Meta’s Facebook and Messenger. The study shows that 87% of Quebecers use Messenger, compared to 73% elsewhere in Canada. On the other hand, 47% of Canadians outside of Quebec use WhatsApp, while in Quebec that proportion drops to 22%.

“Quebec likes Facebook because of the speech bubble that pops up when we use the platform,” explains Nadia Seraiocco. From the moment you register on Facebook in French and geolocate yourself in Quebec, from here you will see mainly French-language content, unlike, for example, Twitter, which does not make any linguistic or geographic distinctions. »

Mr. Martel adds that there might be cultural quirks in how Quebecers relate to technology: “I worked for Facebook in Quebec a few years ago and noticed that there is always some latency in adopting new technologies here. The same was true for the adoption of mobile devices or video consumption habits. This phenomenon partly explains our numbers. »

TikTok, less popular than expected?

“TikTok is all the rage right now, but it’s not dethroning the more traditional platforms, both in Quebec and Canada,” adds Mr. Martel. Even if the network is growing rapidly among 16 to 24 year olds and with all the visibility it is getting, it was an important realization for us that it will be seen every day in 2024, that it is far from the most important platform for is advertiser. »

Ms. Seraiocco is also not convinced of TikTok’s potential for the time being: “There is more and more talk about the harmful effects of TikTok. The fact that it is a Chinese platform presents them with an obstacle. Their incomes are also falling. »

Very pleased with this first study in collaboration with Léger – which Ressac acquired in autumn 2021 – Mr. Martel explains that his agency will now publish such data on social platform use in Canada every year.

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