As part of the launch of its new Audience Optimization tool for publishers, Facebook has revealed a vast collection of data about its users’ interests.
Having made the information public, we now know the categories into which Facebook plumps its users and the number of people that belong to each one. Although no one has reached an exact figure, one estimate puts the number of publicly available Facebook interests at over 282,000 — meaning it’s now possible to gauge the most popular user interests on the site.
Unsurprisingly, the list is full of weird and wonderful categories, from the obvious (over 724 million people like “friendship”) to the decidedly niche (41,660 users like a category termed “narcissistic parent,” whatever that means).
Additionally, for pop culture enthusiasts, the data reveals the most popular people (that’s celebrities to you and me) on Facebook. At present, Justin Bieber claims the top spot with an audience of over 186 million people. Even here there are a few surprises to be found — more people like Japanese pop star Puffy AmiYumi than Rihanna, for example. As a testament to the sheer randomness of the entire exercise, you can even find out how many people like the Power Macintosh 7100 or Applebees in Amman, Jordan (it’s 30 for each, in case you were wondering).
If you’ve ever managed your advertising preferences, you will have already spotted some of these categories. This is the first time the entire list of Facebook interests has been ranked and made available to everyone, however.
The list comes bundled in the Facebook Audience Optimization tool, which lets page managers identify the “preferred audience” for each post. Facebook claims that the data was formulated from “popular Facebook Open Graph pages, Facebook Ads tags, and other Facebook-specific data sets.” It has also been suggested that Facebook gathers keywords from user posts to compile the data.
A variety of the results, split into top 10 lists according to audience size — including celebrities, presidential candidates, gadgets, positive and negative verbs and emotions — can be viewed below, courtesy of The Verge. You can also view the top 2,001 entries from the complete list of categories here.
Top 10 Celebrities
1 Justin Bieber, (186,828,600)
2 Jimmy Page, (167,746,500)
3 John Lennon, (164,652,270)
4 Cristiano Ronaldo, (156,309,649)
5 Puffy AmiYumi, (139,218,340)
6 Vin Diesel, (136,008,970)
7 Lionel Messi, (125,930,510)
8 Rihanna, (115,765,870)
9 Eminem, (108,499,750)
10 Katy Perry, (103,003,350)
Top 10 Presidential Candidates, 2016
1 Donald Trump, (29,184,270)
2 Bernie Sanders, (8,786,800)
3 Ted Cruz, (7,922,760)
4 Marco Rubio, (4,994,730)
5 Rand Paul, (4,858,570)
6 Mike Huckabee, (4,232,000)
7 Jeb Bush, (3,774,770)
8 Hillary Rodham Clinton, (3,196,570)
9 Rick Santorum, (3,127,550)
10 Chris Christie, (2,326,150)
Top 10 Gadgets
1 iPhone, (428,558,240)
2 iPad, (174,672,620)
3 iPod Touch, (110,935,280)
4 Samsung Galaxy, (99,291,670)
5 iPhone 6, (99,273,140)
6 iPhone 5, (59,781,650)
7 PlayStation, (58,697,680)
8 PlayStation 4, (51,163,410)
9 iPod, (41,866,420)
10 Xbox (console), (41,225,760)
Top 10 Positive Verbs and Emotions
1 Love, (838,535,070)
2 Life, (838,535,070)
3 Friendship, (724,202,450)
4 Happiness, (570,671,330)
5 Gratitude, (395,032,460)
6 Smile, (223,331,500)
7 Laughter, (222,797,200)
8 Wish, (190,842,860)
9 Wonder, (182,871,010)
10 LOL, (164,446,530)
Top 10 Negative Verbs and Emotions
1 Boredom, (81,402,240)
2 Strike (attack), (45,654,450)
3 Crying, (41,464,420)
4 Shut up, (40,384,570)
5 Nothing, (39,679,080)
6 Envy, (28,333,460)
7 Tears, (28,005,360)
8 Cheating, (19,758,520)
9 Lie, (16,777,970)
10 Punishment, (16,191,620)
