Facebook leads the league for sharing social content
Far from losing in popularity, Facebook still leads the way when it comes to social sharing amongst its users.
Online content engagement platform AddThis has published its first quarter 2014 analysis of trending content, social sharing and online engagement trends.
The ‘AddThis Quarterly Trending Content Report: 1Q 2014’ is based on an analysis of over 100 million content sharing and consumer engagement points across devices from January 1st through March 31st 2014.
It shows some interesting nuggets about what we share and—more importantly — which platforms we use to share our information.
The report provides insight into consumers’ social sharing behavior including data on peak sharing times, the top social networks used for sharing and engaging with content, and the most viral content.
Analysis of interactions across the network are split into categories including entertainment, sports, and politics and includes the most shared content, peak sharing times, and most engaged states within those categories.
This quarter, Malaysian Airlines Flight MH370 dominated our feeds, closely followed by the Golden Globe Awards and the Sochi Olympics.
Facebook accounted for 26 percent of all social sharing. Address bar sharing, which is cutting and pasting of URLs, followed with 21 percent, Facebook Like actions at 15 percent and Twitter at 11 percent.
Use of desktop computers continues to decline with a decrease of 17 percent Year on Year (YoY). Mobile and tablet usage accounts for 35 percent of sharing and engagement, but the majority of content sharing and engagement occurs from a desktop computer.
Content that grabs the reader’s attention and generates an emotional reaction triggers the most engagement. Here are the top articles and images shared in the US this quarter.
71st Annual Golden Globe Awards Nominee Reactions
Kim Jong Un's executed uncle was eaten alive by 120 hungry dogs
My Playground- California's Central Coast
This Employee Quit Her Job Horribly. How Her Boss Responds
An Elderly Couple Took The Same Photo Every Season. But Nothing Could Prepare Me For The Last One
The 27 Naughtiest Cats In The World (Hilarious Cat Shaming)
Interestingly, we share different genres at different times of the day. The graphic shows that we tend to share entertainment related content at 2-3pm EST, whilst sports related content is shared during the morning hours of 11am-12pm EST.
Normalized for population differences, the three most engaged states for entertainment content were, in rank order, California, New York and Texas. These states also have the highest propensity to share sports related content.
California, Pennsylvania and Washington D.C., were, in rank order, the areas of the US most engaged with political content.
But Facebook does not beat all of the other platforms across all topics. We tend to share food related content around lunchtime (11am –12pm EST). But we prefer Pinterest for our food related content. 46 percent of food related items get shared there.
The most popular food related item which was shared was a recipe for low calorie Skinny Spaghetti Squash Alfredo. Healthy spaghetti? Go figure.
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