Timeline Extends the Life of Facebook Posts

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.