What Makes People Share on Facebook [Infographic]

Do you keep track of how often  your Facebook posts are shared? If you’re using Facebook as a business tool, you probably do. After all, sharing likely exposes your content and your business to an audience outside of your devoted followers.

The type of content Facebook users share is varied, but the reasons we share have some common threads. Today’s infographic, from research organization Fractl, looks at why we share content on Facebook.

Why we Share on Facebook

• 48 percent of 2,000 respondents say they share to entertain their friends.

• 17 percent of respondents want to express the issues they care about.

• 13 percent share to evoke an emotional response.

• 11 percent share to provide useful information.

Women vs. Men

• Women are 13 percent more likely to share content to elicit an emotional response from their friends.

• 60 percent of women older than 50 say they share “to make their friends feel happiness, sadness, anger,” etc.

•19 percent of men share things to persuade their friends to feel something.

The Most Frequent Sharers

• 56 percent of Facebook’s most frequent sharers check the platform one a day

• 18 percent of the most frequent sharers share content more than once a day.

• 5 percent of Facebook’s most frequent sharers share content more than 4 times a day.

What We Share Reflects Our Best Selves?

• 28 percent of sharers say they share to maintain a certain image of themselves.

• 32 percent of sharers say they share to make themselves look good.

• 41 percent of sharers say they avoid sharing things that make them look bad.