Out of those Americans who use both Facebook mobile and traditional Facebook.com, the greater share of their time is now being spent on Facebook’s mobile site and apps (441 minutes per month) vs. time spent on the traditional website (391 minutes per month), according to a new report from comScore.
Out of the 78 million Americans ages 18 and over using Facebook via mobile, average engagement was more than 7 hours via mobile browser or app. Yet average engagement for the total 160 million Americans using Facebook was only 6.5 hours per month.
According to TechCrunch, “that’s actually a big problem for the social network.”
While Facebook can show 4-7 ads per page on the classic website, only a few ads per day display in the mobile feed. Users are resistant to traditional mobile ads, so Facebook has already incorporated mobile Sponsored Stories – companies pay to have them appear more often (than they regularly would) in a user’s Newsfeed.
To keep making money, Facebook has to find a way to inject more ads into the mobile newsfeed. TechCrunch sums it up: “Can Facebook get away with showing more ads on mobile without turning us off?”
Other brands also showed high numbers for mobile engagement in the comScore report, most notably Twitter, with 25.6 million mobile users (excluding use via third-party apps) and an average engagement of nearly 2 hours each month, vs. only 20.4 minutes for those visiting Twitter.com from their computer. Pinterest had 7.5 million smartphone visitors who engaged for nearly an hour, Foursquare had 5.5 million mobile visitors with an average of 2.5 hours per month, and Tumblr’s mobile audience of nearly 4.5 million engaged for 68 minutes per month, on average.
How will Facebook incorporate more ads into its mobile offerings? And how will each of these other platforms make money via mobile without turning away users?
