In a new Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) survey, it appears the social media giant is finding success with mobile stories but not so much from its promoted ones.
On October 3, the company launched a testing of promoted posts. This enabled U.S. Facebook members to promote personal posts to their friends on the site. The company began testing this feature in May to New Zealand and by the beginning of this month, it had been introduced in 20 countries.
It appears to be off to a bumpy start.
Last week in a survey of 750 Facebook members via SurveyMonkey conducted by the brokerage firm Sterne Agee, it found that 77 percent of respondents had not even noticed mobile ads. This is a good thing as the ads are understated and blend in with the site’s mobile news feeds but the findings weren’t exactly encouraging as the company is focusing on ad revenue and monetization.
But on a negative note, only 16 percent of respondents indicated a desire to pay to promote posts on Facebook.
Here’s some highlights from the survey via AllFacebook.com:
- 61 percent of respondents access Facebook via mobile devices, and 64 percent of those respondents do so once or more per day, with 46 percent saying more than once daily.
- 71 percent of women used mobile Facebook applications once or more per day, compared with 57 percent of men.
- 77 percent of users who access Facebook via mobile devices were moderately to extremely satisfied, while 15 percent were only slightly satisfied, and 7 percent were not satisfied at all.
- 45 percent of respondents said they would be willing to try Facebook Gifts, with those aged 30 to 44 (52 percent) more likely to do so than those aged 18 to 29 (38 percent).
- 47 percent of respondents said they would be willing to try using a Facebook search engine, with older users again more favorable toward the idea than younger users.
- 63 percent of desktop and laptop users access Facebook once or more every day, with 43 percent admitting to doing so multiple times per day. In the 18-to-29 age group, 78 percent said they access the social network once or more per day, and 61 percent do so multiple times daily. And 55 percent of respondents 60 and older access Facebook once or more every day.
- Nearly one-half of respondents said their time spent on Facebook was the same as six months ago, while 26 percent said they were spending more time on the site (7 percent answered significantly more), and 25 percent were spending less time (significantly less for 4 percent).
Sterne Agee also included charts with their findings.
Take a look.
So at the end of the day, Sterne Agee had a few conclusions:
While the near-term outlook on Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) remains cloudy given the ongoing transition to mobile, we continue to believe the long-term opportunity is large. Our survey of more than 750 Facebook users indicate that engagement remains healthy, particularly among 18- to 29-year-olds, and user experience remains relatively unchanged versus six months ago, despite the increase in the number of ads being seen over that period.
Investors may have the opportunity to hear about the progress of Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB)’s ads when the company reports earnings on October 23.
On Monday, Facebook Inc (NASDAQ:FB) closed at $19.52. Year-to-date, it is down 48.63 percent.
