An attention economy trap? An empirical investigation into four news companies’ Facebook traffic and social media revenue

Earlier studies and reports suggest that news companies have handed power over their traffic and news distribution to Facebook, and this is harming their business. This article, based on data analysis of four media companies, evaluates to what extent this is true. The article finds that 24% of news companies total traffic came from social media with 67% of traffic coming either directly or from search to their sites. The article suggests that abandoning Facebook would cost news companies traffic, but not much revenue. For the companies studied, revenue from social media traffic made 0.03%–0.14% of their total revenue, and from social shares 0.009%–0.2% of total revenue. The article argues that because news companies rely on Facebook for the audience, they continue to be trapped in the attention economy.