To gain attention on Facebook Graph Search, brands will have to rank within the first two to three results according to a new study by Mediative. The agency’s Toronto research lab, TiveTank, recently tested the eye movements of 21 study participants to determine which parts of the results page command attention.
The results were not surprising, proving participants scan the first two text results and not much else, with almost all of the participants (95%) reading the first two results and most merely scanning the right side of the page.
However, the study contradicts conventional wisdom that images attract more eyeballs than text on Facebook – study participants looked at text listings “48% more than the accompanying images.”
Announced in January, Graph Search is still in beta testing and is being slowly rolled out to a few hundred thousand users. A Facebook rep said there still isn’t a firm timeline in place for its large scale roll out in Canada. (Read Marketing’s Q&A with Synacapse’s Max Kalehoff to find out more about what Graph Search means for marketers.)
Here’s the dark map showing only the information most participants viewed. The first two results are the most visible, indicating more people looked at them than the other results.
And here is the heat map. The red areas received the most views, followed by yellow and green.
