There has been some heated discussions about teens and their decline in Facebook usage in 2013. Warnings that Facebook will earn its spot as the next “has been” social media website alongside Myspace are circulating the web. According to a study by Socialbakers, total reach of Facebook brand pages among teens ages 13-17 fluctuated throughout the year but ended 2013 in about the same realm it began. The teen’s age group was the only one in the study that did not have a substantial increase in reach in 2013 (29.1%).

So why did reach among teens remain stagnant in 2013? A very high level of market saturation among 12-17 year olds undoubtedly played into it. eMarketer estimates that “95.9% of social networkers ages 12-17 used Facebook in 2013.” With numbers that high, remaining stagnant is not so bad, however, future decrease is likely.

In Facebook’s Q3 2013 earnings call CFO, David Ebersman acknowledged that Facebook “did see a decrease in daily users specifically among younger teens.” Facebook’s rapid growth among older age groups is a big turn off to teens. Looking back at the Socailbakers study as noted by Marketing Charts, reach among ages 45-54 was up 69%, reach among ages 55-64 was up 71%, and reach among the study’s oldest age group (65 and up) was a whopping 74% higher at the end of 2013 than it was in the beginning. With most teens looking for independence, having their parents and grandparents on Facebook compromises its ability to give them that.

As a result, teens are not necessarily ending their relationships with Facebook, but are expanding the number of social media sites they use. According to a study by GlobalWebIndex, mobile chat services, video-sharing apps, and photo-sharing apps are becoming the new cool thing. Luckily, Facebook has its various acquisitions keeping it in the teen social media game. Facebook owns Instagram which has seen an 85% increase in teen usage in 2013. Most recently, Facebook announced that it would be acquiring the mobile messaging company WhatsApp for $19 billion. WhatsApp had an 81% increase in usage among teens in 2013.

To learn more about Facebook’s WhatsApp acquisition, check out BIA/Kelsey‘s post WhatsApp with $19B Acquisitions These Days? by Mike Boland.

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Nearly 70 percent of consumers who watched this year’s NCAA tournament did so on both a television and mobile device, according to a new study from Millennial Media and the Interactive Advertising Bureau conducted by Harris Interactive. More than 2,000 U.S. adults were surveyed about how they engaged with mobile devices during the tournament. Among sports fans with a favorite team that played in the tournament, more than 25 percent used mobile devices as a first screen for game coverage and news updates.

Finance, telecommunications and entertainment were the top three advertising verticals during the games, probably aiming to reach the 18-49 adult male audience. Local SMBs seeking to reach sports fans have more digital video choices as consumer behavior shifts from television to mobile devices and apps. We’re also seeing more social TV companion apps like Yahoo’s Into Now and the Comcast Xfinity TV Sports Remote App to complement the distribution and interactivity elements of sports content.

This week, BIA/Kelsey will release an Advisory on multi-screen consumption of March Madness content and local monetization opportunities. In this Advisory, we profile three sports video companies and apps that stream sports content to local and national audiences. Check out other highlights from the Millennial Media/IAB study below.

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Millennial Media — the largest independent mobile ad network, reaching 63 million U.S. mobile Web users — has published its August Mobile Mix report. The report covers impression activity and trends across its network, encompassing device hardware, operating system software and applications.

Highlights from the latest release include:

– Android OS smartphone impression share climbed 7 percent month over month, capturing 26 percent of the U.S. smartphone OS mix. Only Apple is ahead of Android with 48 percent impression share. Apple OS, however, dropped 7 percent from the July report. The results mark the continuation of Apple’s summer slide, as its July impression share score was lower than June. RIM placed third in this category with 19 percent of smartphone impression share. Surprisingly, its relative share grew by 3 percent from July.

– Zooming out, overall smartphone impression share improved from 48 percent to 51 percent, distancing both feature phones (33 percent) and connected devices (16 percent) and serving as a microcosm of the hastening adoption of smartphones.

– In terms of ad requests, Android also gained ground, surging 39 percent month over month while Apple remained flat. The continued rise now brings Android’s explosive growth in this area to 996 percent since the beginning of 2010.

– Apple’s growth spurt occurred with iPad, where ad requests were up 76 percent from July.

– Among device impressions, Apple still holds a commanding lead at more than 28 percent, with Samsung (15 percent), Motorola (14 percent) and RIM (11 percent) trailing. Apple’s iPhone is the dominant branded device at almost 28 percent, with the Motorola Droid rising to a distant second at nine percent. BlackBerry’s Curve checks in at 6 percent.

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Mobile ad network Millenial Media has posted its August S.M.A.R.T. report, which spotlights trends in mobile advertising and commerce based on activity across its network (both actual campaigns and network data). The latest release centers on mobile retail advertising and buying behavior in advance of the upcoming holiday shopping season.

Top takeaways from the report include:

– 27 percent of mobile subscribers who access retail content on their phones are mobile-only. In other words, they cannot be reached online or in-store … only through their mobile devices. This creates an entirely new and uniquely mobile retail audience for advertisers to cater to.

– Mobile retail users trend more affluent than the aggregate mobile audience, rating higher in all income brackets above $50,000. 

– Popular items that mobile retail users investigated included electronics (31 percent), clothing/accessories (29 percent) and books (21 percent) … all ripe holiday retail categories.

– On the advertising side, the majority of campaigns (57 percent) were still purposed for “broad reach,” although the remaining 43 percent had targeted audience reach goals. Among targeted campaigns, GEO was the most prevalent method (41 percent). Retail and restaurant franchises and banks were active geotargeters. Demographic targeting trailed closely (37 percent), with automotive (millenials) and pharmaceuticals (women) prevalent users of this method.

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