Recently Inside Facebook published some great commentary on the curiously titled “Gesundheit! Modeling Contagion through Facebook News Feed,” an April 2009 research article co-written by Facebook’s in-house sociologist Cameron A. Marlow.
The article explores some fascinating data on the patterns that drive Facebook Page growth. Working from a huge dataset of 262,985 Pages, Marlow and his team were able to uncover the following:
1) Facebook Pages grow significantly (in terms of new fans) because of the actions of a few identifiable Facebook networks (e.g., San Francisco residents or students at a small set of universities). Within these networks, 14% to 18% are “chain initiators” — i.e., those who, right from the get-go, share a given Page with their friends.
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