This morning I came across some numbers about Facebook that made me stop and think.
- Facebook is globally closing in on 700 million users
- In 2010, 7.9 new account registrations occurred per second.
- The average Facebook user clicks the “Like” button nine times, writes 25 comments, becomes a fan of two pages, is a member of 12 groups, and spends 55 minutes on Facebook a day.
- In May 2011, Brazil had the largest growing Facebook registrations with more than 1.9 new users
- The top 5 US States Using Facebook are California (19 million which is close to 52% of it’s population), Texas (11 million), NY(10 million), Florida(8.8 million), and Illinois(6.2 million)
- The top 5 countries using Facebook are US (149+ million), Indonesia(37+ million), UK( 30+ million), Turkey( 29+ million), and India(25+million)
Interesting facts but what to do with them? Although Facebook is a social platform, it is also the forum for businesses to share their information and value.
The social science around how to best combine these two worlds and capture the benefit is just evolving. For example when looking on help on “when the best time to post?”, there is a variety of responses. It completely depends which blog or site you click on. It might have some data to support the answer or it might be completely the author’s best thoughts. One thing is certain, more money will be spent to dissect, define and fine tune how a post will best reach this mass audience. According to a CMO survey conducted by Duke University and the American Marketing Association, social media marketing budgets will grow from the existing 6% to more than 18% over the next 5 years.
I rather liked Facebook being a place where I could simply connect with old friends and family members. I realize that such large numbers of a captive member base are just too tempting not to target, but do you think our external analysis and targeting by these marketing groups will affect how or if we continue to use Facebook?
NPR looked at this subject from a political science point of view. It is an interesting post: Facebook Has Powerful Friends; Will Users Suffer?
I knew it was huge..However I had no idea how big the audience. It serviced as a communition tool, nothing more. I block users. And am in touch with people I wouldn’t be otherwise. Makes me feel part of my. Old circle of friends. I somehow wonder if the majority uses FB that.way. The.countries mentioned all have large populations.