Can Facebook pull it off?
Mark Zuckerberg announced last week (March 6) that Facebook is building a “privacy focused platform” around its messaging apps WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger as well as Instagram, so that messages sent through them will be encrypted end-to-end. The Economist has hypothesized that Zuckerberg’s ultimate goal is that all types of businesses can use these messaging apps to provide services and accept payments. But can Facebook pull this off? After all the high-profile scandals around personal data breaches and allowing third parties access to users’ information, do consumers and businesses still trust them?
We conducted research among 500 social media users in the US between Feb. 25-March 4 and our data shows that Facebook may face some hurdles in persuading consumers to use these sites for business transactions, especially with Facebook Messenger. However, WhatsApp and Instagram may have an easier time if consumers have not yet associated those sites with Facebook.
Consumers are not yet used to conducting purchases or business transactions on Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram or even using them to simply engage with companies.
We asked social media users to identify what types of companies if any, they engage with on social media sites and results vary. Between 14-40% of them engage with some type of company through Instagram, but only 4-10% use Facebook Messenger and 3-16% use WhatsApp for the same reason.
When we prompted respondents more directly in regards to making purchases through those sites, only 7% of Facebook Messenger users said they use it to shop for goods/services, while 17% of Instagram users and 18% of WhatsApp users respectively said they use them for that reason.
Safety of private information/data and trustworthiness are the most important factors to consumers when deciding what social networking apps or sites to use – and Facebook is not perceived highly in these areas.
When we asked social media users to make tradeoffs between different factors that could impact their decision on what social media site to use, 50% ranked “safety of private information/data” as the most important and 43% “trustworthy” as second most important consideration factor. These ranked higher than factors like “allows me to make purchases directly from their platform”, “ease of use”, “fun” and “innovative”.
However, Facebook is not perceived as safe, trustworthy or transparent and that may be haloing over how consumers view Facebook Messenger. When compared to other networking sites (LinkedIn, Twitter) only 12% of Facebook users rated Facebook as the “safest”, “most trustworthy” or “most transparent”.
When we asked the same questions for messaging services, 10% rated Facebook Messenger as “most trustworthy”, 11% as “safest” and 13% as “most transparent”. On the other hand, WhatsApp and Instagram were rated much higher on these attributes among their respective users on these attributes.
In addition, when we asked social media users what sites or apps help them feel safe and secure, only 28% selected Facebook and only 24% selected Facebook Messenger vs. 33% for Instagram and 37% for WhatsApp.
Though not as distrusted as Facebook or Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp has a relatively low usage for a messaging app in the US, with only 19% trial and 11% current usage among social media users. That said, WhatsApp shows momentum: 46% of its users indicate they use it now more than a year ago, and 30% that they are planning on using it more a year from now.
Consumers are indicating low interest in convenience, fun or popularity from their social media sites/apps if their personal information and safety is at risk. WhatsApp and Instagram may not be impacted as much by Facebook’s scandals and reputation, so they may be able to more easily make the transition to sites that provide services and accept payments. However, Facebook Messenger, which has 4 times as many active users in the US as WhatsApp, may be more vulnerable to Facebook’s preceding reputation.
