More than half of all content shared on the web occurs via Facebook.
ShareThis arrived at this statistic in a study conducted with StarCom MediaVest Group and Rubicom Partners, and first reported by TechCrunch.
Facebook clearly dominates in the sharing category, accounting for 38 percent of all sharing referral traffic (the next closest are email and Twitter, tied at 17 percent each.) And that’s just the percent of folks who click through.
When examining the raw numbers (links shared but not clicked on), the figure is even higher. In that case, Facebook accounts for a whopping 56 percent of all shared content on the Web, up 11 points from August, 2010.
The study also shows that Facebook links are clicked on an average of 4.3 times, versus Twitter at 4.9 times and email, where links are clicked on an average of 1.7 times.
The study looked at the sharing and clicking habits of the more than 300 million people a month who pass links with a ShareThis button on over a million websites, producing 7 billion pageviews a month.
Readers, how often do you share content on Facebook?
Interesting article. I think social search tools are then inevitable and very useful if 56% of content shared online occurs via Facebook. It makes total sense. You need to be able to easily find content that your Facebook friends are sharing.
Comment by @EmDupre — June 6, 2011 @ 3:39 pm
Not enough!
Comment by Holly — June 6, 2011 @ 5:33 pm
I can understand this very much, all our pages can be SEND and/or SHARED in Facebook, this is working very good for us at the Grand City Hotels portal
Comment by Daniel Wishnia — June 6, 2011 @ 5:36 pm
56% of statistics are made up! Seriously, though. I get most of my content on Facebook– a result of friends liking things.
Comment by Dennis Yu — June 7, 2011 @ 1:34 am
Or not. http://blog.sharethis.com/2011/06/06/sharethis-an...
"The study focuses on ShareThis’ database of sharing activity for the month of March 2011 and includes a detailed analysis of more than 7 billion sharing signals across all major sharing channels, specifically looking at the sharing patterns of more than 300 million monthly users across the top 1,000 publisher websites of ShareThis." http://techcrunch.com/2011/06/06/sharethis-facebo...
Even TechCrunch's article gets it right "Overall, sharing now produces an estimated 10 percent of all Internet traffic and 31 percent of referral traffic to sites from search and social. Search is still about twice as big."
To put a nuance to it "shared on the web" is not the same as "posted somewhere else by using a ShareThis widget." 56% of data reposted using a Sharethis button which only accounts for about 10% of internet traffic – that's the line you're looking for.
Comment by @LucretiaPruitt — June 7, 2011 @ 1:34 am
Can it accurately be said that "share on FB" trumped "email a friend"? This study only counted those who used a Share This button. Many sites have a separate email button.
I'd be interested to see more demographic details from the Share This data. Our agency specializes in marketing to Baby Boomers and seniors, and recently completed a national study of "Social, Silver Surfers." We found that 71% of Internet users over 40 used "email a friend" tools while 14% used "share with your network."
Comment by Erin Read Ruddick — June 7, 2011 @ 9:19 am
That's 106%! (Lies, damned lies, and stastics…)
Comment by Ralphus — June 7, 2011 @ 10:58 am
The graphic used in the presentation of this information, and from which this article was written, included a mistake: Twitter actually has 11% clickthrough.
Comment by @christuttle — June 7, 2011 @ 8:58 pm
1/2 of all statistics are made up, I'm just not sure which half…
Comment by Willywa — August 2, 2011 @ 5:16 pm
It's really good to see that more than half of all content shared on the web occurs via Facebook. I like the valuable info you provide in your articles. I'm quite sure I will learn lots of new stuff right here!
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Comment by Diana Laura — August 23, 2011 @ 3:58 am
I'm considering adding some like buttons to my website but not sure if enough people on Facebook do share content. I think twitter does a better job when looking at my analytics for this site Hot water Cylinders
Comment by Russ Copper Cylinder — August 25, 2011 @ 12:18 pm
I find it hard to belive that the number is only 38% i would expect this number to rise to maybe 43% within the next year at least as facebook grows this number will shorly grow.
Comment by jeremy seo cardiff — November 3, 2011 @ 2:04 pm
This is indeed a large number but I think Google's +1 will have a big effect on this in the future as it increases its user base.
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Comment by Azhay Domino Gembel Elet — February 16, 2012 @ 2:03 pm