Facebook Posts Get Half Their Reach Within 30 Minutes of Being Published

November 2, 2012

This article is included in these additional categories:

Analytics, Automated & MarTech | Automotive | Data-driven | Digital | Social Media

A Facebook brand post will get half of its reach in the 30 minutes after it is published, according to updated data provided to MarketingCharts by Socialbakers. Socialbakers analyzed a select group of brand posts published on October 31st, finding that an average of one-third of post reach was obtained in just the first 10 minutes after publication. Previous data from Socialbakers has indicated that after the first half of reach is obtained in the 30 minutes post-publication, the rest is attained in the following 7 hours.

Socialbakers’ data shows a dramatic drop-off in share of reach after the first 10 minutes, when posts got one-third of their total reach. In the 11-20 minute period after publication, posts reached an estimated additional 13.2% of their total audience, while in the following 10-minute period, they reached just another 4.7% of their total audience. By the time 90 minutes had passed, the average post was reaching less than 2% of its total audience.

This drop-off is even more pronounced than email opens. According to a GetResponse study released in October, some 23.6% of email opens occur within the first hour after delivery. By that time, a Facebook post would have already reached 60% of its total audience.

As with emails, the importance of timing these messages and posts becomes pronounced when considering the share of opens and reach occurring immediately after delivery. For example, a Yesmail study also released in October found that while most consumers have a preferred time of day to shop online, retailers aren’t aligning their email campaigns with those preferences, and are therefore missing out on significant opportunities to reach potential customers who may be “nudged” while shopping. In the same way, brands looking to increase engagement with Facebook fans should consider when those fans’ peak levels of activity are.

Facebook Fan Engagement Hovers Around 6% – Or Less

Although Adobe recently reported that Facebook fan engagement rates surged in Q3, they still remain quite low. According to a NapkinLabs study of brand pages with between 200,000 and 1 million fans (reported by Mashable), just 6% of Facebook fans engage with brands’ Facebook pages by liking, sharing, or commenting.

That may even be high. Looking specifically at the automotive sector, Socialbakers found that the most engaging post, by Rolls-Royce, had an engagement rate of 5.74%. The 4th-most engaging post saw just a 5% engagement rate.

About the Data: Socialbakers’ formula for determining engagement rate for a post is as follows:

ER = (likes + comments + shares/number of wall posts by page) / total number of fans * 100

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