Dive Brief:

• An analysis by Social@Ogilvy, the social media consultancy arm of advertising firm Ogilvy and Mather, finds that the organic reach of brands on Facebook is declining and heading to zero. 

• In 2012, Facebook restricted organic reach of brand page content to about 16 percent, and in December 2013, more changes reduced it further. The Social@Ogilvy report looked at more than 100 brand pages. For those with more than 500,000 likes, organic reach was 2% in February.

• Meanwhile, since 2007, more than 3 million teenagers have dropped Facebook, according to a report by iStrategy Labs. Membership of people 55 and older grew 80.4% in that time.

Dive Insight:

Facebook’s attempt to increase its number of paid ads and migrate unpaid “likes” from brand pages is irritating teens, causing them to flee and limiting the organic reach brands have accrued. While these moves are understandable on Facebook’s part, it looks like they are making the network less appealing to both brands and one of their most treasured demographics. Watch young people and brands increasingly move to other networks like Pinterest and Instagram, which they are already doing in droves.