Eye Tracking Analyzes How Social Media Topics Become Viral
We’ve recently read about another study that used eye tracking in research and this time it’s CNN who’s using eye tacking to better understand their consumers. In an effort to understand how articles are shared across social media, CNN studied people’s motivations for passing along a story. What are the benefits for advertisers who are featured on pages being passed around amongst friends?
After awkwardly naming their research “Pownar” (power of news and recommendation), CNN found that 27% of news consumers share 87% of news links overall. The study took place over two months, followed 2300 people, and used biometrics and eye tracking among other methods to figure out that 43% of all links are shared over social media sites like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Myspace. Thirty percent of links were shared over email, 15% through SMS text messages and 12% were sent through instant messaging and chatting.
Interestingly enough, CNN found that there were three main reasons to share news stories, but each area of the world varied greatly on the reasoning. In the United States, CNN found that news readers had more altruistic reasons for sharing stories – perhaps information for a friend about a situation in Africa or sending something that related to a friend such as tips for health and the like – anything that was particularly helpful to friends or family. In Europe, people tended to share work-related stories more often and those in Asia and the Pacific sent links more as a status broadcast, identifying the characteristics that make people themselves, sharing news that reinforces or describes their own knowledge and identity.
Of the total content shared, 65% was current news, 19% was breaking news, and 16% of links sent were comedic in nature. As altruistic as most sharing was, it’s not all without ego. The act of sharing, states the article, is seen as an underlying message of the sharer imparting knowledge.
CNN says that the one part of the objective behind the study was to find out how important recommended stories are to advertisers. They identified a number of ways to understand why and how people share what they share. If there is a relationship with the content on an emotional level as opposed to just random content advertising, brands tend to benefit from recommended stories.
CNN’s research says 27% of us share 87% of news links
Related articles:
- Eye Tracking in the World of Social Media Pt.1
- Eye Tracking in the World of Social Media Pt.2