Timeline Extends the Life of Facebook Posts

Michael Garrity — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:45:00 GMT

Facebook’s Timeline update has been available for brands long enough now that we’re finally able to gain some useful data about the effect they have on marketing efforts, and the initial information seems pretty positive.

Most notably is a recent report from social media analytics firm Sotrender, which says that Facebook posts now live longer on Timeline that that did before the format change. Before, half of the comments made on a brand’s Facebook post were made within the first hour of it being put up, but since the Timeline switch, that average has increased to 2.5 hours.

Unfortunately, the study was fairly limited. The London-based company only looked at 130 U.K.-based brands and about 5,000 Facebook posts, giving them a usable but ultimately limited sample.

Still, this is the first such study since the big move to Timeline, and it does present some very interesting information that could interest companies on the social network.

For instance, the report shows a 13-percent increase in the average number of users that interact with a post. Plus, about 80 percent of comments are now made within 8.5 hours of a posting, a two-hour extension over the previous average.

But the more things change, the more they stay the same. Timeline hasn’t contributed to a significant hike in a brand’s overall number of fans, nor did it improve the average number of “likes,” posts and comments per user or cross-page engagement.

Facebook vs. MySpace

Pete Prestipino — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 19:23:00 GMT

While most marketers are gaga over Facebook these days, you may not want to rule out MySpace just yet. While the Web media didn't miss a beat on Facebook matching MySpace in terms of unique traffic last week, MySpace was touting its own achievement - namely, "significant spikes in time spent and page views," according to January Comscore numbers.

These user engagement metrics include all time highs in the "minutes per visitor" and "total minutes" categories. Page views also jumped to the highest level the company has recorded in more than one year. Those are important metrics and should not be ignored.

The average MySpace user spends 266 minutes (4.4 hours) on the site every month—a +15% increase over last month and a +31% increase year over year. January is the highest level of minutes-per-visitor MySpace has ever seen. Page views on MySpace have reached an all time high of 44 billion—more than double that of the company’s nearest competitor.

'Net Features : user engagement

Timeline Extends the Life of Facebook Posts

Facebook vs. MySpace