Facebook Even More Powerful Potential Than Thought

As mentioned in last week’s post, Facebook Rewarded for Monetizing Mobile Digital Marketing, the most popular social network site is finally being rewarded by investors for, well, its social network. With its stock back at IPO highs, many investors are wondering what comes next for the still emerging company. A recent study by Stanford University and Facebook Data Science team discovered an interesting insight into the inner workings of Facebook and the factors that determine the linear relationship between a user’s posts/status updates and its visibility.  Specifically:

·      The study looked 220,000 user profiles during a one month period. It examined users’ posts, the number of comments and “likes” that post received, then the researchers crosschecked those posts against internal Facebook data to see how many actually viewed the post.

·      Most users underestimate just how many of their Facebook “friends” actually see their posts by a factor of 4! The study found that the average post was viewed by 33% of a user’s network. Over the course of a month,  61% of a user’s friends see their post(s), on average.

·      There is a substantial degree of variance, however, when a post receives no to little feedback through the “like” or comment mechanism. Although those kind of posts saw an audience of 28% on average, the 90% range varied between 1%-55% of “friend” views.

·      There is a positive relationship between friend count, number of unique likes and visibility. However, the mean error rate was 8%, thus demonstrating strong variance.  

In conclusion, a user’s post that receives no likes or few to none comments does not actually mean his/her friends did not see the post. Rather, it could be a greater indication that his/her friends did not care about the post.