Facebook

Other than CTR, here are the other areas that Facebook achieved gains in Q4 2013.

  • Cost-per-click (CPC) rose 29% during the holiday season.
  • Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) is up 437% year-over-year and 51% quarter-over-quarter.
  • CPC, CTR, and CPM are all up in Europe and U.K.
  • Facebook ad click volume is up 125% year-over-year.
  • Facebook ad impressions volume is up 10% year-over-year.

Engagement

Perhaps even more impressive are Facebook’s engagement numbers.

  • Social engagement with brand posts is up 180% year-over-year.
  • Comments and shares are up 40% year-over-year.
  • Brand post impressions are up 150% year-over-year.
  • Posts with images are up 10% and posts with links, text, or video are all down.
  • Posts with images produce a 650% higher engagement rate than regular text posts.

Of course we’re now in Q1 2014, a quarter in which Facebook has announced major news feed changes that are certainly affecting all brands’ presence on Facebook. 

Posts from pages will deliberately be pushed down the news feed to make room for more personal content from the friends the user engages with the most. This does make sense, after all it is a social network first and foremost, however I would argue that if a user has chosen to ‘like’ a brand page then they have chosen to actively interact with that brand and will expect regular posts from it.

2014 will see the numbers for brand post impressions drop significantly as well as social engagement figures.

It is interesting to see that Facebook has a bias towards posts containing images rather than links or other media. Perhaps this is a lesson for brands and companies wishing to keep their Facebook pages alive.

The challengers

Here are the social revenue per visit (RPV) stats for the US:

  • Facebook: up 72% year-over-year and 31% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Twitter: up 131% year-over-year and 84% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Pinterest: up 244% year-over-year and 69% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Tumblr: up 340% year-over-year and 38% quarter-over-quarter.

Tumblr is showing the most impressive improvement year-on-year and almost caught up with Facebook’s RPV in the last quarter.

Facebook is still improving year-on-year however Pinterest passed Facebook’s RPV in the UK in 2013 and is expected to do the same in the US in 2014.

Twitter’s RPV is also up an impressive 63% quarter-over-quarter.

Socially referred traffic

Facebook still refers the most traffic but is down year-on-year, whereas Twitter is growing the fastest with 18% growth share quarter-over-quarter.

  • Facebook’s share of referred visits is down 15% year-over-year and only up slightly 2% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Twitter’s share of referred visits is up 125% year-over-year and 18% quarter-over-quarter.
  • Pinterest’s share of referred visits is up 89% year-over-year and 11% quarter-over-quarter.

Both Pinterest and Twitter are improving dramatically in terms of referring traffic to retail sites and as Facebook continues to decline, it may not just be Pinterest that overtakes Facebook for RPV.

Pinterest should definitely be a part of any social marketing strategy, if for no other reason than Pinterest users tend to spend more. Pinterest shoppers in the US spend an average of between $140-$180 per order, compared to Facebook and Twitter shoppers who spend on average $60-$80.

For more on Pinterest, check out how small businesses can make the most of Pinterest and how retailers can use Pinterest to drive sales.