• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, November 13, 2018

While overall digital content consumption grew in September, Facebook properties continued to lose market share.

In fact, Facebook-related properties -- including Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook’s flagship app – fell by 7%, year-over-year, according to a new analysis of Nielsen data by Pivotal Research.

In aggregate, core Facebook properties -- including Messenger -- fell by 13%, while time spent per user fell by a whopping 20%, year-over-year.

The declines continued despite the increasing popularity of Instagram -- which saw usage increase by 41%.  WhatsApp saw usage increase by 38%, year-over-year.

Pivotal suspects that Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica scandal combined with smaller security issues continue to haunt the tech titan.

“It is impossible to identify the degree to which Cambridge Analytica and concerns around data privacy have had any lingering impact, nor if Facebook’s efforts to improve the quality of time spent (at the expense of volume of time) might be causing these declines, although presumably both factors are at play,” according to the report.

Relative to industry standards, Pivotal suggests that Facebook is over-monetizing it properties to a “significant” degree.

By contrast, overall digital consumption increased by about 9%, year-over-year.

Among other big winners, Google properties -- including its home page, YouTube, Waze and other properties using Google’s AMP -- increased usage by about 19%, year-over-year.

In September, Google’s YouTube, Google and Waze combined to account for 32.5% of all time on digital media, according to Pivotal’s analysis of Nielsen data.

In aggregate, Snap also did well in terms of usage. Indeed, the company saw consumption increase by about 15%, year-over-year, while Twitter saw usage rise by 26%, year-over-year.