You Spend a Third of Your Mobile Minutes on a Facebook Property.

How much time do you spend on Facebook? For some of you it might be a lot – more than you’d probably like to admit.

How about if I were to ask you how much time you spend on a Facebook property? The answer would be different. In fact, it would be so different you’d probably start to question your own habits.

One in three minutes

That’s right. We spend a third of our mobile minutes on Facebook, Messenger, Instagram or Whatsapp. Just let that sink in…

That means if you’re reading this on your phone, you’re likely to leave this page in the next three minutes and visit one of those apps (just kidding, you wouldn’t do that… right?).

The latest social media stats for the Australian market show that there are 17 million monthly active users on Facebook. No, that’s not a typo, it’s true – about 70% of our population is on Facebook. HUGE.

Remarkably, data published by Sensis in 2016, suggests that not all businesses are taking advantage of this. In fact, small and medium-sized businesses are on average investing less of their marketing budget in social media at a time when the networks are continuing to grow and grow.

Video: The Screen Queen

Over the past few years we’ve seen Facebook evolve in different ways, but none more than video. Just think about how much more video you see now on Facebook compared to a few years ago.

In 2013, 15% of video views came from tablets and smartphones. In 2016, that number grew to 50%. Quite a large increase in a few short years. And people aren’t just watching the video – they’re sharing it too. In fact, 68% of viewers share video content they watch on their mobiles.

The dynamic duo, Google and Facebook

If you attended our Targeting Tomorrow Conference earlier this year, you would have been fortunate enough to hear from our Global President George Manas. One of the things he discussed was the platform revolution. Platforms like Facebook and Google are the new power base and are challenging traditional ecosystems that have been longstanding.

Data published by Nielsen late last year revealed that the top eight smartphone apps of 2016 were owned by – you guessed it – Facebook and Google.

As platforms like Facebook and Google continue to grow and innovate, their impact on how we use our devices and consume content will no doubt be profound. The question is – how will your brand capitalise on this?

Resolution's recommendations

• Analyse each platform’s features in detail. You can’t advertise on Messenger and Whatsapp yet… but all in good time, I’m sure.
• Plug in first-party data. If you can do this at scale and leverage mobile too, you’re approaching the ‘holy grail’ of digital marketing – personalising your message and serving it at the right time.
• Again, make the most of scale. For instance, Facebook and Instagram may well warrant the specific building of creative (as opposed to repurposing). At Resolution, we do it all the time for one of our major clients. It’s been so successful that they currently use Facebook exclusively to advertise one of their brands!
• End by looking at your entire platform ecosystem. The points of difference come when you think about platforms separately and together.