As is easy to see from yesterday’s Q3 Facebook financial report that was quickly mentioned all around the web, the company has been doing significantly better with their marketing efforts since this time last year or even earlier this year. Everybody who saw the company’s Q3 report was shocked at the huge numbers it threw out, and essentially it caused a lot of excitement. However, today I have found another reporting based upon Facebook, that may also bring up the spirits of those advertisers who find they are using Facebook quite a bit. Just as Facebook’s Q3 report did, this new report also contains some substantially huge numbers.
The report comes from Adobe, and it is entitled, “Q3 2012 Global Digital Advertising Update.” The report covers a lot of ground, but I would like to focus on Facebook’s results in particular, as Facebook is one of the more widely used marketing platforms in the social media realm.
Now, most brands that are on Facebook have a single reason for their creation of a page, and that is to get everyday Facebook users to engage with them. However, there have been some brands lately that find they are becoming skeptical of the success that Facebook can bring. Well, according to Adobe’s report, Facebook is doing better than ever.
Brands continued to invest in Facebook to drive fan growth, and Facebook continued to show significant increases in engagement. Engagement, which is defined as likes, comments, and shares, grew 896% YOY,[ as shown in Figure 9]. We surmise that increased engagement rates result from platform changes (Timeline) made in the last three quarters, use of new acquisition and engagement metrics, and more effective social marketing by brands. Increases in engagement levels in future quarters would indicate that Facebook is becoming a more valuable advertising marketing channel than in the past.
I thought it was a typo at first, too, but upon a second look I was shocked to find that 896% was the real number that Adobe found. For any advertising company to show such incredible results for just one year’s time is a feat. That number is impressive no matter how you look at it. However, in their explanation above, Adobe leaves out one of the main contributors that have been leading to Facebook’s exploding success these days, which is mobile.
In the Q3 Facebook report, we see that mobile accounted for 14% of Facebook’s total revenue. Now, with Adobe’s report we see that mobile users make up almost one quarter of Facebook’s total engagement. That number is, “up four-fold from the period prior to the Timeline format change.”
Day after day we see continued success from Facebook’s marketing. They have come a long way since their unbalanced footing not long ago, but it seems they are becoming much stronger, gaining much more trust from their advertising customers. Marketers have accepted Facebook as a viable marketing source, and because of that we will continue to see growth in numbers from the company.
