In fact, in my case, the numbers are overwhelming.
Avg time spent
LinkedIn 2:09
Facebook 0:40
There are many factors that influence these numbers but mainly, the overriding factor is I create content that is much more targeted towards businesses - my LinkedIn contacts, and not my friends that predominantly populate my Facebook account.
LinkedIn posts are also published on LinkedIn groups as well as to my connections and available to anyone - non-connections and fellow group members alike. So presumably, anyone that clicks on a link is more likely to be interested in the content = a more engaged reader and more interested in spending time reading the story.
Facebook posts on the other hand might only reach a limited amount of my friends due to EdgeRank and not necessarily people interested in marketing and communications-related stories.
Testing the trend
In my last post: wow-should-i-be-pissed? I decided to test this trend. I created a story and headline with a much broader appeal (to both professionals and friends) just to see what would happen.
Once again, LinkedIn contacts spent much more time reading the post – despite its universal and personal appeal. In fact, LinkedIn contacts spent more than 4xs as much time on my last post than my FB friends. Heck, with FB friends like these, who needs…
Interestingly, both channels (and Twiter too) referred nearly identical amounts of viewers to the post. But again, the Linkedin connections spent time reading, while FB friends, I would guess, most-likely scanned it.
Does this trend stack up for your business?
I thought it would be important to see if this trend is similar for businesses that actively use both channels - companies with successful LinkedIn and Facebook accounts.
Sebastian Gullack, CEO of Atcore – a leading digital marketing strategy company in Denmark, was kind enough to share some recent stats to help me out.
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| Atcore analytics screen shot |
As you can see, the trend is the same for Atcore’s posts, though not as profound as in my case.
LinkedIn referrals spent on average 6 seconds more on posts than FB followers. Interestingly, twitter referrals spent nearly 30 seconds less on the content than the other two channels. (In my case, the difference was even greater) Is content more than 140 characters too challenging/boring? :)
Impressively, look at the number of referrals from FB compared to LinkedIn for Atcore: 1,020 vs 449 vs 927 (twitter).
In Atcore’s case, Facebook is a much more successful source for sending viewers to their blog than LinkedIn.
This could be because Atcore only posts their stories on a limited number of groups on LinkedIn. Whereas I have 4-5 groups that I regularly share content with, I would guess Atcore is a little more dicreet in their LinkedIn pollenating.
In addition, Atcore mainly posts in Danish whereas mine are in English -more than 55% of my readers are based in the USA.
Moreover, Atcore has built a loyal audience on Facebook that expects to find their content on the channel.
But again, once readers do get to Atcore’s post, the Facebook referrals spend less time on it. They also view fewer pages on average, 1.75 vs 2.10. My stat ratio was similar.
This once again reaffirms that LinkedIn referrals are, I believe, more interested in what you have to say or in gaining some type of insight that they can apply to their own business.
By nature, most of us post on LinkedIn groups for a reason – to share insight with like-minded professionals. So readers would naturally be more interested in what you are publishing.
OK, but the bottom line. Which network best converts to customers, Facebook or LinkedIn?
Hubspot was recently asked how conversion rates on the channels stack up. They found that LinkedIn produced the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate.
Of the 3,128 B2B customers HubSpot examined, LinkedIn generated a 2.60% conversion rate. This was four times the 0.67% rate that Twitter generated, and seven times higher than Facebook’s 0.39% rate.
Cover your bases
When it comes down to it, I believe both channels are worth your time for marketing b2b content – as illustrated by Atcore’s and my stats. The more media you are on, the easier you are to find and the more chances of your content getting read.
But as always, it’s important to target your content to where and who your audience is, i.e. are they on FB, LinkedIn… or all.
LinkedIn versus Facebook infographic
Bopdesign, a marketing agency in San Diego, recently created an infographic highlighting some of the plus and minuses between the two channels.
Get the pdf here: http://cdn.bopdesign.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/BOP_Infographic_FINAL_012412.pdf
About Andrew Singer
I provide cost effective communications and inbound
marketing services to a wide variety of Danish companies that do business globally.
From hi-tech firms like Siemens and TrackMan to more mainstream organizations
like Reputation Institute, Carlsberg and the Confederation of Danish
Industry, I deliver strategic creative development and English copywriting
services.
Check out examples of my work on my website www.andrewsinger.dk
or online
portfolio.
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