Wow. Remember when MySpace was the dominant social network? Seems like a long time ago, as the past three years have seen Facebook approach, catch, and blow past MySpace to become our preferred online hangout spot.
Now, new data released by Facebook and third party researchers show just how influential Facebook has become in our daily lives. Combined with several critical adjustments to how Facebook publishes “news” and intersects with other sites, the state of Facebook is mind-blowing. And important for business.
Here’s 11 things about Facebook that you need to know:
1. 350 Million Global Users, and Counting
Facebook announced recently that they had passed 350 million members, making Facebook the third-largest country in the world, if it was a country. (perhaps that’s their end-game, joining the UN and raising an army?)
2. 100 Million U.S. Users
Sure, Facebook is strong around-the-world (Canada has the highest penetration rate), but nearly 1/3 of all Facebookers are here in the U.S. You may have heard of a TV show called American Idol. On a good night, it averages 20 million viewers. Facebook has 100 million American members. Hmmm.
3. Average Facebook User Spends 55 Minutes Per Day
Nearly one hour per day, per user. That’s a lot of Facebook time. How can your company grab a bit of consumer attention? This data is based on Facebook’s own published stats, covered by Inside Facebook.
4. Nearly 80,000 sites using Facebook Connect
Connect is the Facebook initiative that has the greatest long-range impact. By integrating Facebook closely, sites are making our personal social graphs truly portable. Instead of having to go to Facebook and other sites to visit our friends, they travel with us online (and in our pockets via mobile devices), always there to provide advice or commentary. Even Yahoo! and MySpace are rolling out deep Facebook integrations.
This of course makes Facebook the central hub of not just social media, but the Web (which is why Google is scrambling to catch up after their competing Google Connect fell flat).
5. Facebook Fan Box Becoming Pervasive
Perhaps the least powerful, but most prevalent flavor of Facebook Connect is Facebook Fan Box, a simple tool for enabling your Web site visitors, YouTube video watchers, or email newsletter recipients to become a fan of your brand – without even having to go to Facebook.
6. Average Facebook User Has 130 Friends
Will Facebook users continue to add more friends at a rapid pace? It depends upon how they view their Facebook connections. 130 friends almost bumps up against Dunbar’s Number of 150 – the theoretical maximum number of actual friend relationships you can sustain, according to British scientist Robin Dunbar.
If Facebook continues to revolve around relationships that you actually possess in three-dimensions – people you “actually” know, then the addition of bunches of new friends may slow considerably. But, if Facebook makes the leap to tie people together more casually (like Twitter), average friend counts could rise dramatically.
7. Average Facebook User Fans 2 Pages per Month
If you think tons of your customers should become fans of your company’s Facebook page, you might want to recalibrate your expectations. The average Facebook user “fans” only 2 new pages per month. That’s not a lot , considering how many brands, causes, and organizations we come into contact with on a regular basis.
If you’re going to make growth of your Facebook fan base a key part of your social media strategy, you must create a clear rationale for why consumers should participate with you.
You also might consider a robust, organized approach for promoting your Facebook fan page.
8. Only 4% of Pages Have 10,000 or More Fans
If your Facebook fan page is a bit of a ghost town, you’re not alone. A fantastic study by Sysomos of 600,000 Facebook fan pages shows that only 4% of pages have 10,000 or more fans – and only .76% have 100,000 or more.
That’s why it is so critical to focus your Facebook strategy on activating the fans you have, not just collecting fans like baseball cards.
9. Wall Posts Don’t Impact Popularity
The Sysomos study also found very little correlation between how frequently the Facebook page admin posted to the wall, and total number of fans. However – and this is important – there is a strong correlation between amount of other content (notes, links, photos, videos) and number of fans.
Thus, if you want to grow your Facebook fan base, it is imperative that you move beyond simple Wall posts and add photos, videos, links and other content.
10. Customized News Feed
Facebook’s recent move to an algorithm-driven news feed means that just because someone is your fan, does not mean they will see your wall posts or status updates (true for both individuals, and brands). Instead, the default news feed is now comprised of content that Facebook thinks you’ll like, based on your interactions with content from that author in the past, and interactions by your friends with that content.
This puts a tremendous premium on posting engaging content that will get comments and likes and shares. If you’re not paying attention to your content engagement scores within your Facebook analytics, start doing so now, and testing content types to see what works best for your brand.
11. Real-time Search Changes the Game
Facebook is now making most content available publicly, unless you tell them not to via your privacy settings. Twitter opened their data stream to anyone (not just big developers). Google and Bing are incorporating this data into search results, in real-time.
This has tremendous implications for search engine optimization and reputation management, since a negative status update about your brand might now show up on the first page of Google search results for your company name (at least temporarily). The shakeout is still happening, but someone in your company needs to be on top of real-time search. Today.
Facebook may not be the ideal environment for every social media initiative, but its huge size forces you to at least consider participating – regardless of what type of business you run. Conversely, some brands are putting an awful lot of eggs in the Facebook basket, which is perhaps justifiable based on the facts above. However, I’m not keen on building the centerpiece of my social media strategy on what amounts to rented land.
Is your business taking advantage of Facebook? How important is it to your social media efforts? What advice do you have for creating content and managing Facebook fan pages?
(This post originally appeared on SocialMediaExaminer.com)
US Speedskating Finds Fans In Social Media
Did you know the United States Speedskating team has won 75 Olympic medals, making it the most successful U.S. winter Olympics sport?
Into the breech stepped comedian Stephen Colbert, whose Colbert Nation is now sponsoring the team (in a wacky case of real people sponsoring real people through the conduit of a fictional character). However, the sponsorship only runs through February’s Vancouver Olympics, after which the team will be sponsorless once more. Gold level sponsorship is $300,000 a year for four years, which seems like a pittance in the sponsorship industry?
With the assistance of their agency Flint Group, the U.S. Speedskating team is using social media to connect with a new generation of fans, making sponsorship more attractive to potential partners. (disclosure: Flint Group is a Convince & Convert client)
Facebook As Home Base
I’ve written before about the potential of using Facebook as your social media home base, and in this instance U.S. Speedskating is doing exactly that. Facebook is more interactive and easier to update than the U.S. Speedskating Web site, and with 3-4 posts per day, and many of them photos or videos, the team is keeping fans engaged on Facebook. Wisely, they are trying to tie into the Colbert program as much as possible, without shifting the focus away from the athletes. Their recent Facebook program of having fans send in photos of themselves wearing their Colbert Nation caps is an example of this integrated approach.
You’d like to see more fans of the page (~1,200 as I write this), but I suspect interest will pick up as the Olympics near, and the program matures (the entire social media effort is fewer than 30 days old). They are also posting on related Facebook pages, especially those devoted to broader Olympics coverage, to make sure speedskating fans know the new team page is out there. This is good tactic that is often overlooked. As long as you don’t get spammy, posting on other Facebook pages about your page is perfectly legitimate. Just remember to keep it relevant. If it feels to you like it might be a little over the line, it IS.
Shine the Light on Others, and It Shines Back on You
I also like the way the team is highlighting bloggers. Using a custom Facebook tab called “Featured Bloggers” they are promoting blogs devoted to skating that have covered the team (as well as Colbert’s blog). It’s a good example of using their social graph to boost the social graph of bloggers that cover them. Smart.
Listen and Engage
While Facebook is the core, the team is also interacting with fans (and potential fans) in the wild, with a social media listening program that used an Olympics ticket giveaway as a rationale for interacting. (if you donated to the team, you were entered to win tickets).
Agency personnel are also commenting on blogs, providing contextually appropriate links to the Facebook home base. Note that Flint Group is not pretending to BE U.S. Speedskating, but appropriately says in the blog comment that they are helping with social media. A best practice.

Telling Stories With Video
As you might expect, there are some intriguing stories surrounding the team, including Simon Cho who came to the U.S. as an undocumented immigrant from Korea; Allison Baver, who shattered her leg in an accident last year; and of course Apolo Ohno, the most well-known U.S. speedskater, and Dancing with the Stars alum.
Most of these stories are being told via video, with a YouTube channel that’s cross-posted to Facebook. The team is trying to find the budget to send members of the Flint Group to Vancouver to live-blog and video blog the speedskating events, as well as produce live Facebook and Twitter updates.
Like Herding Cats Wearing Skates
The two biggest challenges seem to be not getting overwhelmed by Stephen Colbert, and operating a social media program where you have very little ability to manage the participants.
Corporate marketers, does this sound familiar?
The speedskating team has many strong personalities, almost all of whom have their own Web sites and social media outreach. Plus, creating social media content isn’t paramount in the minds of the athletes these days…something about having to train for the Olympics…
As with many companies where team members have their own personal brands, the U.S. Speedskating team has to work to integrate multiple outposts under an umbrella, while consistently making the case that supporting the team’s unified social efforts is as valuable as individual initiatives. The agency has built and distributed content creation guidelines to the skaters to help consistency.
So far, so good. While this integrated social media program doesn’t have a ton of eyeballs on it yet, I think they’re executing wisely.
What do you think?
Tagged as: Blog Commenting, case studies, facebook, Flint Group, Olympics, social media strategy, Stephen Colbert, twitter, U.S. Speedskating, YouTube
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