How much time does the average agent spend on social media? Anywhere from one to four hours per week, according to an RISMedia survey. All told, internet users worldwide spent about 135 minutes per day—or nearly two-and-a-half hours—on social media last year, up from 126 minutes in 2016 and 90 minutes in 2012, reports Statista. While time spent scrolling through a blend of social updates, tag sale items and photos is dramatically increasing, it’s difficult to assign a number for each app and determine where users are spending most of their time within these platforms. This could change in the near future.
According to a recent report by TechCrunch, a new “Your Time on Facebook” feature will allow the app’s two-plus billion monthly active users to track length of scrolling sessions. While the feature will not yet reveal more intimate details, such as which portions of Facebook are attracting the most user attention, this could be a step toward visibility into the inner workings of the social media user. Tracking details will include data from the previous seven days, along with a total daily average.
Facebook has not yet announced a release date; however, a spokesperson confirmed to TechCruch that the company is, in fact, developing the tracker.
“We’re always working on new ways to help make sure people’s time on Facebook is time well spent,” the unnamed source told TechCrunch.
The upcoming tool was discovered by app investigator Jane Manchun Wong within inactive programming on Facebook’s Android app:
Facebook is working on “Your Time on Facebook” which could help users to manage their time spent on Facebook app.
Instagram is also working on helping users to improve their digital wellbeing: https://t.co/y38mV3RtqB
as previously spotted: https://t.co/D26M9RuSxG pic.twitter.com/YqSyH0fpII
— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) June 22, 2018
Facebook isn’t the only platform developing this technology. Instagram announced it will also be releasing tools to help its community track daily app habits. The general idea has been available via external apps for a couple of years—iOS has a feature, although difficult to find, that shows mobile users how much time they’ve spent on all of their apps in the last 24 hours and the last seven days. Android users can also download one of many apps that perform this function—Quality Time (free), App Usage (freemium) and Instant ($2-plus per month) are just a few of them. However, app-specific tools may be more valuable in the long run depending on how much data they can provide.
How will this information be used? Although social platforms are promoting trackers as a way to self-monitor app usage and control time spent online, they will most likely leverage the data for ad sales. In an industry becoming more reliant on technology and social media, real estate professionals would highly benefit from access to this data, especially for app-specific trackers that may one day provide more insightful information about time spent on particular portions of the app, such as Facebook’s Marketplace or friends’ profiles versus business pages.
Of course, relevancy continues to be the key to successfully navigating social media and creating a powerful presence. As this soon-to-be released data may show, more and more time is being spent on mindless scrolling; therefore, strategic social media systems, such as RISMedia’s ACE (Automated Content Engagement) platform, are essential to stopping scrollers in their tracks so they actually take in messaging they find useful and shareable. The more data the industry is able to obtain about social media users, the more effective their targeted marketing strategies will be.
Liz Dominguez is RISMedia’s associate content editor. Email her your real estate news ideas at ldominguez@rismedia.com. For the latest real estate news and trends, bookmark RISMedia.com.
