Martech: Martech is Marketing Logo
  • Topics
    Digital Transformation
    Marketing Operations
    Data
    Customer & Digital Experience
    Performance Marketing
    Marketing Management
    Special Reports
    All Topics
  • Conference
  • Webinars
  • Intelligence Reports
  • White Papers
  • What is MarTech

Processing...Please wait.

MarTech » Performance Marketing » Study: Only 3% Of Facebook News Feed Is Promoted Content

Study: Only 3% Of Facebook News Feed Is Promoted Content

Socialbakers study finds 24-29% of posts seen by a typical Facebook user come from Pages, with only about 10% of those being promoted posts.

Martin Beck on October 20, 2015 at 6:19 pm | Reading time: 2 minutes

facebook-newsfeed5-ss-1920

Only 3 percent of Facebook’s News Feed is made up of advertising, according to a new Socialbakers study.

That will probably come as a surprise to those who assume that Facebook’s News Feed ad load is higher, driving as it does more than a billion dollars a month in advertising revenue, but Socialbakers found that typical users are seeing few sponsored posts when they scroll through their feeds on the desktop.

Looking at more than 900 users during August and September, Socialbakers reported that the overwhelming majority of the content — 71 to 76 percent — was posts by friends while 24 to 29 percent came from Pages, owned by owned by companies, celebrities, public figures and organizations. Of the posts by Pages, 9 to 10 percent were promoted. Such sponsored posts made up 3 percent of the overall total of posts seen by subjects in the study.

Facebook doesn’t release details about the content makeup of people’s News Feeds, which are determined by its famously complicated algorithm, so studies like this one are handy for tea-leaf-reading marketers. The Socialbakers’ survey panel was selected from users of the Socialbakers social analytics tools so it is likely a more technically savvy group than an average set of people on Facebook. That might account for the low session length Socialbakers reported. In about half of the 23,000 sessions studied, users viewed only four posts before exiting. Only 15 percent of sessions lasted for more than 20 posts.

A couple other interesting findings:

  • If the second post on the News Feed was a post by a Page, there was 46 percent chance that it was promoted.
  • Video posts by brand Pages were equally spread throughout the News Feed – they didn’t generally get pushed to the top or the bottom.

Socialbakers also released new data about the type of Pages that are performing the best on Facebook, and it’s a runaway from publishers and media organizations.  Two years ago, according to Socialbakers’ data from 100,000 Pages, brands had higher engagement (the total of likes, comments and shares) than media outlets. But brand engagement has stayed flat while media interaction has soared and is now three times higher.

socialbakers-category

 


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily MarTech. Staff authors are listed here.


New on MarTech

    Webinar: The key to email marketing success
    The FTC weighs in on customer data privacy
    Whatever happened to customer journey orchestration?
    The latest jobs in martech
    B2B buyers are much more concerned about a company’s values than the general public

About The Author

Martin Beck
Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.

Related Topics

Performance Marketing

Get the daily newsletter digital marketers rely on.

Processing...Please wait.

See terms.

ATTEND OUR EVENTS The MarTech Conference logo.

September 28-29, 2022: Fall

Start Training Now: Master Classes

Start Discovering Now: Spring



The SMX Conference logo.

Start Training Now:: SMX Advanced

November 14-15, 2022: SMX Next

March 8-9, 2022: Master Classes

Webinars

Tracking Growth From Organic Search

Beyond the Buzzword: Transform Digitally to Drive Organic & SEO Growth

Leap or Linger: Determining Which Ad Platforms to Test for Your B2B Brand

See More Webinars
Intelligence Reports

Enterprise Marketing Performance Management Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Customer Journey Orchestration Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

Enterprise Account-Based Marketing Platforms: A Marketer’s Guide

See More Intelligence Reports
Featured White Paper

The CMO’s Formula To 3x Your Digital Marketing Campaign Results

See More Whitepapers
Search Our Site

Receive daily marketing news & analysis.

Processing...Please wait.

Topics

  • Transformation
  • Operations
  • Data
  • Experience
  • Performance
  • Management
  • All Topics
  • Home

Our Events

  • MarTech
  • Search Marketing Expo - SMX

About

  • What is MarTech
  • Contact
  • Privacy
  • Terms Of Use
  • Marketing Opportunities
  • Staff

Follow Us

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Newsletters
  • RSS

© 2022 Third Door Media, Inc. All rights reserved.