More than half of all Facebook posts are links, but these generate relatively little interaction, according to new research which highlights how video far outperforms all other post types.

Quintly, the social media analytics business, looked at the performance of 94,000 profiles and more than 105 million posts over the 2018 calendar year for its Facebook Study 2018 and reported that 54% of all posts were link posts – almost twice as many as the next format, images (29%), in turn twice as many as video (14%) , with status updates accounting for just 2%.

But when it came to the number of interactions (defined as the sum of likes, comments and shares), the study found that video posts received 65% more interactions than images, in second place, and 258% more interactions than link posts, which trailed in fourth place.

“Depending on your goal, it still might make sense to post links but certainly not when you aim to engage your users,” advised Julian Gottke, marketing & communications lead at Quintly, in a blog.

“Link posts are the only way to drive traffic to your website from Facebook. If that’s part of your strategy, you need to accept the algorithm penalization and live with a lower reach while working towards your goal and sending traffic to your website.”

The study also looked at the timing of posts, and reported that 23% of posts are published on weekends, indicating a slightly higher posting trend during weekdays (based on an even distribution of 14.23% daily).

But people are more likely to interact at weekends: on Saturdays and Sundays there were an average 13.3% more interactions.

‘Likes’ still make up the bulk of reactions but usage of the new Reactions has grown steadily since their introduction in 2016, with ‘Love’ and ‘Haha’ most widely deployed.

Sourced from Quintly; additional content by WARC staff