Facebook accounted for more than half of all content-sharing activity in 2011, according to new data from AddThis.
The company’s sharing buttons are embedded on more than 11 million websites, giving it a pretty broad view of how content moves across the Internet. While Facebook captured 52 percent of all sharing, some smaller players are growing fast:
- Twitter accounts for 13.5 percent of sharing, but grew almost six times this year.
- Tumblr sharing grew by about 13 times “and is accelerating.”
- Use of Google’s +1 button grew almost four times “but has plateaued.”
AddThis also found that 2011 was a big year for sharing on mobile devices, with six times more sharing on iPhones, iPads and Android devices this year. The iPad also surpassed the iPhone in sharing volume in June.
The company also analyzed which news event during the year accounted for the most sharing activity: Osama bin Laden’s death.
Simon Dumenco at Ad Age, who had an early look at the stats, has pulled out some notable figures.
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- This timeline from AddThis shows the most-shared news events of 2011.
Earlier: Most online sharing doesn’t use embedded buttons (Poynter.org) | Additional coverage of Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr
