Going native on Facebook: a content analysis of sponsored messages on undergraduate student Facebook pages

Cynthia B. Hanson
2018 International Journal of Internet Marketing and Advertising  
This paper examines the prevalence and nature of sponsored messages on Facebook. Results of a content analysis of desktop and mobile Facebook pages from 52 undergraduate student subjects showed 53% of sponsored messages in the desktop sample and 100% of sponsored messages in the mobile sample would be categorised as native advertising, as they were located in the user's news feed. Approximately 12% of all news feed posts were sponsored posts and almost 90% of sponsored news feed posts were
more » ... on the user's or user's friends' actions. The majority of the sponsoring advertisers were from companies established after the year 2000, and only 11% were leading US advertisers.
doi:10.1504/ijima.2018.089213 fatcat:rkxddpoxsbcdxolxyppbtrz5hq