01
2010
Facebook Users Prefer Broadcast Media
A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about Facebook becoming the largest news reader. Facebook does send more traffic to News and Media sites than Google News but looking more closely at the data, I noticed that the two sites send traffic to a very different list of News and Media websites. The following table starts to tell the story, showing the top 10 News and Media websites visited after Facebook and Google News last week.
These two lists are very different. In particular, notice the preponderance of print media brands among the top downstream sites from Google News.
A larger proportion of Facebook’s News and Media traffic is directed toward Broadcast Media websites compared with Google News. The following chart illustrates this point nicely. The chart shows upstream visits to Broadcast Media websites from Facebook and Google News over the past year.
Compare that to Print Media websites where Google News, despite being a much smaller site overall, still sends almost as much traffic to Print Media websites as does Facebook.
Digging even deeper, let’s look at a few individual websites. The Wall Street Journal last week received 10.37% of its US visits from Google News compared to only 1.41% from Facebook. The New York Times similarly received more traffic from Google News than from Facebook (5.21% compared to 2.96% of upstream visits). Fox News and CNN by contrast received more traffic from Facebook than Google News. Fox News received 5.50% from Facebook and 1.18% from Google News while CNN received 5.92% from Facebook and 1.77% from Google News.
But why the difference? Do Facebook users prefer Broadcast Media? I ran a correlation analysis to try to figure out if the amount of traffic Facebook sends a site is related to the number of fans a brand has on its Facebook page. I found no such correlation. (For the analysis, I used downstream visits from Facebook to 23 top News and Media websites excluding news aggregators and compared this to the number of fans on the associated Facebook page.)
A colleague pointed me to an article in the New York Times suggesting that social networks are creating a water cooler effect and actually boosting viewership of broadcast media. Is Facebook the new water cooler and if so, how can print media capitalize on this trend?
“““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““““` `
It’s puzzling why there is such a big difference. Its a difference between what is consumed and what is shared. I might read to be informed but I will share goofy or unusual content. This might explain the difference.
Hitwise Uncovers Puzzling Difference Between Sharing News And Consuming It
Heather Hopkins is senior online analyst at Hitwise, which monitors traffic to web sites for Experian. She writes that “Facebook Users Prefer Broadcast Media.”A couple of weeks ago, I posted an entry about Facebook becoming the largest news reader. Fac…
Interesting analysis, thanks !
Would be interesting this type of analysis with major ecommerce sites…
But what really matters are the session times, repeat visitors and bounce rates coming off the traffic social networks drive to media sites, etc. 100 million uniques that spend less than a minute on a site and never come back isn’t viable audience, just noise.
Makes sense. CNN will usually have it first, but NYTimes will usually have it better. Facebook sharers like things that are happening now, but Google News can’t sort it out that fast; they lean more on reputation than immediacy.
I’d like to see if this holds up at a local level. (My guess: yes.) Can Hitwise measure local broadcasters vs. local newspapers?
well, the main difference is that Google News has a pre-definite pool of sources, chosen by its editors (how else should we call them?), while FB just collects what users chose to share.
In this case it would perhaps make more sense to compare traffic directed to news sites by feed readers, than Google News.
Hi Heather, fascinating analysis! I’m curious as to whether the same data is available for Twitter.
Very interesting observation. Where does twitter fit into this? While many users make twitter their own, it’s strength as a place for sharing information as news is one of its main attractions. Do people more often retweet NY Times articles or CNN videos? Individuals like emerging news, however they also like follow up details of what actually happened. Does social media have a place for broadcast AND traditional print sources? These are certainly questions we should be asking each other. I would love to collaborate with you on the topic.
Thanks for taking a deeper look at these recent statistics.
I think one point not brought up yet for the increased sharing of broadcast media sites is the fact that Facebook is a better platform for video sharing.
While “online print media” also uses video content, there is a lot more video to see and share from CNN, MSNBC and FOX.
Matt
For a great discussion of these types of topics, and more, check out:
The BRITE ’10 conference on brands, innovation and technology.
March 31 – April 1
Columbia University
New York
$55 off discount code: twitter55
Very good analysis. It make sense for hard core news readers to go to Google News. And for young people to prefer to watch videos broadcasts.
Hey, Great post!
In this day and age taking advantage of SEO and social network websites as effective marketing tools for your business is essential! Most businesses dont fully understand the capabilities of these tools to improve traffic and exposure! I was searching for a company to ship one of my vehicle overseas and ran into Auto Shipping Network, I was amazed at how they implemented these tools so well into their company website. Check it out for yourselves at http://www.autoshippingnetwork.com/ .
Thanks for all the comments. I am working on two follow up posts… One on downstream news and media sites from Twitter and the other on the loyalty of FB and Google News visitors to News and Media websites (measured by new and returning visits clickstream data). Keep the suggestions/comments coming!
It’s because Facebook users are all about immediacy, instant, quick show me something so I can move onto something else. Pictures offer that, text fails because of time spent in reading. This is why Youtube is so famous. If I share a video with a friend, the landing page better have a video.