What gets more traction for publishers: content shared on Facebook or Twitter? According to the Social Media Sharing Trends 2010 report from SocialTwist, Facebook dominates content sharing among social media sites but links shared on Twitter have a much higher click-through rate.
SocialTwist examined content shared with its Tell-a-Friend widget from August 2009 to July 2010.
Among social networks Facebook accounted for 78% of shares, well more than any other choice. Twitter was third with just 5%:
But in looking at click-through rate Twitter’s CTR was 1904% compared to 287% for Facebook:
That means that on average Twitter shares got 19.04 clicks vs. only 2.87 clicks per share on Facebook.
This makes sense since by design Twitter usage is focused on short comments/exchanges and sharing links while there is a lot more happening on Facebook that can take up users’ attention. But the sheer volume of Facebook sharing means that total referrals from Facebook shares are still higher for many publishers.
Another thing worth noting from the study is that email still dominates content sharing though it is starting to lose ground:
Nick Stamoulis says
I suppose it does make sense that links shared on twitter have a higher click through, because that is the intent of twitter, to share information quickly. Where as Facebook is built with different intentions, and is a place that holds a visitor longer.
Adam Sherk says
I agree Nick, that does make sense. Although Facebook is certainly trying to accommodate publishers these days so we may see this gap narrow.
Trinity says
Interesting data, I’ll have to use this as reference, thank you for sharing.