Facebook loves video content. YouTube, Amazon and YouTube are its top three.
It has a $50 billion market cap. The question is: Is it a monopoly, a duopoly, or a platform for content on the rise?
There’s no doubt that Facebook does create content. The question is: What content, and what is its power?
Today, Facebook released its 2017 Global Audience Report, which details the millions of pieces of data the social network has on its billions of users.
The attention Facebook receives globally underscores a huge advantage in the endless market for content distribution. It’s a simple concept: If you want to reach as many people as possible, Facebook is a universal platform.
Find out what kind of content Facebook users are favoring around the world.
First of all, Facebook is a platform for self-expression. It’s an opportunity for creative people around the world to grow and share their work.
As mentioned, it has a $50 billion market cap. The question is: Is Facebook’s a monopoly? Or a duopoly, or an up-and-coming platform?
If you read a thread on Twitter tweetdeck) in 2015, you’ll see it referred to as “Monopoly Aisle” – a reference to the regulation level companies like Apple NASDAQ:AAPL) face from federal authorities. Facebook didn’t make the mistake of worrying about it when it came to mobile; it’s like monopoly neutrality.
In mobile, Facebook’s reach reaches 2 billion people. For other platforms, that’s not nearly the numbers you’ll see – for example, Apple and Google have apps that are significantly more popular. To put this into perspective, the median revenue per user for all smartphone apps in 2017 was $16.53, versus Facebook’s rate of $59.52.
There’s certainly doubt about Facebook’s ultimate power, but it dominates in terms of traffic. Here’s what the social network has in the way of global users:
#1,871 million in the US and Canada
#2,588 million in Europe
#3,345 million in Asia
#4,450 million in South America
#5,359 million in North America
Source: Facebook Global Audience Report
The following graph is based on ad impressions:
Ranking by ad impressions
Here’s what Facebook has in the way of engagement:
#1,639 million in the US and Canada
#2,687 million in Europe
#3,523 million in Asia
#4,362 million in South America
#5,162 million in North America
It’s an incredible story. Over the years, Facebook has developed what is arguably the most influential community in the world.
Using just a small sampling of articles from January – February of this year – here’s how Facebook users responded to 20 stories. The figures for the instances shown here are for mobile devices only.
For the full list, click here.
You can see from this list that Facebook has such an incredible impact on the stories that readers are interacting with. This touches on an issue for me as a journalist: how am I making the most of my time as a journalist?
There’s no question that Facebook is impacting the world through content. With the data Facebook has, they can give us all a clear view into what it is we’re consuming. But this doesn’t mean that the company’s power is restricted to presenting us with content.
What if Facebook started inserting content into articles and media websites? This isn’t an idea that’s being thrown around, but it’s a question that would stretch the boundaries of this discussion.
We want more transparency in the audience figures Facebook shares.
While we’re at it, we need more disclosure by Facebook, like detailed demographic and geographic breakdowns of the data it collects on us. We also need to know how Facebook decides which articles are effective.
The world is changing. Time will tell if Facebook’s ever-growing dominance as a platform will become a problem.