How much are you worth to Facebook? About $48

Facebook will capture nearly 65 percent of all social ad spending worldwide in 2015, says research firm eMarketer.

Terry Collins Staff Reporter, CNET News

Terry writes about social networking giants and legal issues in Silicon Valley for CNET News. He joined CNET News from the Associated Press, where he spent the six years covering major breaking news in the San Francisco Bay Area. Before the AP, Terry worked at the Star Tribune in Minneapolis and the Kansas City Star. Terry's a native of Chicago.

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Terry Collins

Sept. 23, 2015 3:52 p.m. PT

2 min read

Facebook rules the social media ad revenue market, according to research firm eMarketer. Kim Kulish/Corbis

Did you know your Facebook profile is worth more than your Twitter handle? At least, it is in terms of ad revenue.

Facebook, the world's largest social network with 1.5 billion users, stands to make $12.76 in ad revenue off each user worldwide this year and about $48.76 off each user in the United States, according to data from research firm eMarketer.

The Menlo Park, California, company will capture nearly 65 percent of total social ad spending worldwide in 2015, eMarketer reported Wednesday. Facebook is expected pull in about $16.3 billion in ad revenues globally this year, up 41 percent from the $11.5 billion in ad revenue it earned in 2014.

The figures are based off of projected ad revenues from Facebook and its popular mobile photo-sharing app Instagram, which now has 400 million users. Instagram will take in about $600 million in ad revenue this year, said eMarketer, accounting for about 5 percent of Facebook's overall ad revenue.

As for Twitter's, the San Francisco company is expected to make nearly $7.75 in ad revenue per user worldwide this year and $24.48 per user in the US. Twitter has 316 million users.

Twitter is projected to take in $2 billion in ad revenue in 2015, said eMarketer. That's up about 62 percent from the $1.3 billion in ad revenue Twitter snagged in 2014, but slightly down from the 67 percent growth eMarketer projected in April. The firm cited Twitter's stalled user growth for the new projections. Overall, Twitter is expected to capture 8 percent of social network ad spending globally.

"Twitter has improved its ad targeting capabilities," said Debra Aho Williamson, an eMarketer principal analyst, in a post Wednesday. "However, advertisers want to reach a mass audience and that's harder to do on Twitter than on Facebook."

Led by Facebook, overall social ad spending will hit around $25 billion in 2015, slightly up from eMarketer's previous projection of $23.7 billion in April.