It’s become one of the primary news sources of our time, and Facebook owes much of its success to the plethora of content its users share on a daily basis. The over one billion daily users of Facebook aren’t simply lurking on the social network, but rather pushing out new information to their friends and followers. And now, thanks to a study conducted by Fractl, we have a slightly better understanding as to the sharing habits and motivations for sharing on Facebook.
In a recent survey, the content marketing agency queried 2,000 Facebook users to determine their sentiments towards third-party content, and noted “pronounced differences by gender and generation.”
All in all, Facebookers appear to be sharing content pretty frequently. While the average user logs in multiple times a day, over a third of the user base shares content at least once a week. Around 18 percent share content more than once daily, however. As for the primary purpose of sharing content, only 10 percent say that it’s to educate their network, but education is certainly an aspiration — nearly 50 percent say they want to share “useful content.”
Overall, women are 26 percent more likely to share content more than once a day when compared to their male counterparts. Women are also more prone to sharing non-political content (think animal videos, food photos, and memes), whereas men tend to share political content and satirical news. Baby Boomers are 19 percent more likely to share content compared to any other generation, reinforcing the notion that Facebook’s demographic is trending slightly older.
Baby Boomers are also the most likely to share political content, whereas millennials are the least likely generation to become embroiled in these sorts of digital debates. Millennials, however, do have a soft spot for memes, sharing these images 6 percent more than the average user. And the most common denominator, it seems, is humor — 38 percent of people who use Facebook once a month or less say they shared a funny article or video in the last 30 days.
So the next time you log onto your Facebook account, see for yourself how accurate these observations from Fractl may be.
