We're all self-conscious about our Facebook profiles— not only are they ground zero for a host of social interactions, but they're one of the first things an unknown, possibly cute, person sees whenever they look you up online. But instead of blindly manicuring your little plot on Facebook's 750 million acres, wouldn't it be great to know how your profile is actually viewed by real people with real eyeballs? That's what Mashable and startup EyeTrackShop thought, and they conducted an experiment to find out.
Using eye-tracking software and 30 participants with webcams, EyeTrackShop produced the image above, which indicates which parts of the profile were viewed and with what frequency.
As you can see, your profile photo gets ogled the most, followed by the first post on your Wall. After that, visitors are most interested in the cluster of information about you at the top of the page, specifically where you work and where you live. No one really cares about anything on the bottom half of the page.
30 people is a small sample size, so this research is far from exhaustive. But the observations have the ring of truth to them. Go to Mashable for data on other social networks like LinkedIn, Google+ and Pinterest. And act accordingly— people are watching!
[via Mashable]
