Why People Actually Leave
Schultz: Generally, people over-index on the idea that people don't like Facebook or don't like the product and leave. Usually what happens is they don't actually see the value. They don't get to the point at which they see the value.
Everyone goes through a dip. Look back through your timeline — your first year on Facebook, all you did was add friends.
Most of leaving Facebook is not leaving. It's not ramping up.
The Fix
Schultz: People come and they go away for a very limited set of reasons. One — we didn't show them their friends. The best thing we can do is we have their phone number or email address. Get their friends to use Find Friends on iOS or Android. Then send friend requests to those people and notify them.
They come back. They see more and more friends. They get a fuller and fuller News Feed. And they have a great experience. That's really the main reason people don't ramp up on Facebook.
Get someone else to send them a friend request. Notify them. When they come back, get them more friends.
Eight Years of the Same Playbook
Schultz: What we do is optimize on getting them to the magic moment. If they're on the site — great. If they're not on the site, get someone else to send them a friend request, notify them, when they come back get them more friends.
It's very focused and we've stayed that way for eight years and it's really worked. It's hard on a feature phone in India — that is a lot of work. But it's still the most important thing.
We've stayed that way for eight years and it's really worked.