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Facebook is the largest platform that you’re probably using as a social media marketer. In just under 15 years of its existence, Facebook has established the “social media” market and connected marketers to their target groups. However, standing out on the social network continues to become progressively harder as more businesses create pages and compete for attention.

This roundup of Facebook statistics is an attempt to inspire new ideas and help you uncover new facts, so you can develop better Facebook marketing strategy and increase your ROI.
 
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1. As of March 2017 (Q1), Facebook has 1.94 billion MAU (25.86% of the world’s population), and 1.28 DAU. It has been declared the most popular social network, and would be the world’s most populated country if it was one (China is at 1.3 billion). (CNN)

If you had doubts about Facebook’s viability as a marketing channel, these numbers can unquestionably put them to rest.

MAU: Monthly Active Users
DAU: Daily Active Users
 
2. There are 1.74 billion Facebook MAU and 1.15 billion DAU on mobile devices. This is massively significant, as it describes the dramatically developing mobile traffic scenario on Facebook (59.27% of their MAU). (Facebook’s report for investors, 2016)
 
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3. Facebook raised $16 billion during its IPO, the 3rd largest investment amount earned in US history (beaten only by Alibaba, $25 billion, and Visa, $17.9 billion). The massive investment is a testament to the value Facebook holds for businesses.  (Forbes)
 
4. At its current growth rate, Facebook acquires about 8 users per second. That’s 7,246 people every 15 minutes. Considering this growth rate, it’s safe to say that Facebook is a great long-term investment for businesses of all types, in accessing new and untouched markets. (BuddyLoans.com)
 
5. As reported at the end of Q1, Facebook’s revenue stands at $8.03 billion, at a 49% increase year-on-year! 80% of Facebook’s revenue comes from ads, and 20% from virtual games. Clearly, the social network’s advertising platform continues to benefit businesses, attracting more of them to use its features every year. (TechCrunch)
 
6. The WhatsApp status has 175 million DAU (larger than all of SnapChat), acquired in just 10 weeks of launch. Facebook has officially entered the expiring content race, and seems to be in the lead as things stand. (TechCrunch)
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7.  Any two people on Facebook are separated by an average of 3.57 degrees of separation. This blows the 6 degrees of connection theory right out of the water. According to 6 degrees of connection, any two people on earth are connected by 6 acquaintances or less. Facebook revolutionized interconnectivity by enabling the development of a tightly knit network. (Facebook research)
 
8. An average Facebook user has 155 friends. This is great for access, but doesn’t manifest as real relationships because people who participated in the survey said they would trust only 4 of those 155 friends during a real crisis. (Telegraph)

From a business perspective, 155 people is the minimum reach that you can get through the average Facebook user.
 
9. According to Facebook, the Like and Share buttons are displayed and viewed over 10 billion times daily, across websites on the internet. Facebook could be your means to accessing traffic from around the internet,by creating embed-worthy posts and building relationships with the right webmasters.  (Facebook for developers)
 
10. Facebook users consume about a 100 million hours of video on a daily basis, that’s 50% more than what they consumed two years ago and 1/10th of the video consumption on YouTube (1 billion hours). Considering the rate at which consumption is increasing on Facebook, the social network could catch up to YouTube quickly.  (TechCrunch)
 
11. 1/6th of an average Facebook user’s waking time is spent browsing Facebook. That’s about 50 minutes a day. If you’re trying to reach and influence your target audience, your odds of catching them on Facebook are highly favorable.  (NYTimes)
 
12. 75% of all men and 83% of all women who use the internet can be reached via Facebook. The same applies to 88% of 18-29 year olds, 84% of 30-49 year olds and 62% of 65+ year olds. That’s a large and diverse pool of potential prospects. (PewInternet)
 
13. The gender split on Facebook is 46% men and 54% women, so they’re almost evenly balanced. This suggests that you can reach whichever gender (based on your primary focus), using the platform. (Facebook Business Insights)
 
14. 65 million businesses now have Facebook pages. Simply posting on Facebook won’t get you results anymore, as it might have a few years in the past. You now need smart social media marketing strategies to reach and influence your target audiences. (Facebook News)
 

  1. Every 60 seconds, here’s what happens on Facebook:
  • 3,000,000 items are shared
  • 243,000 images are uploaded
  • 3,125,000 likes are generated

(Doz.com)

This presents a unique, massive opportunity for you to engage your target audience. With the right types of content and distribution strategies, you can build a responsive and loyal community around your brand.
 


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  1. Here’s more of what happens on Facebook in 60 seconds:
  • 510,000 comments are posted
  • 293,000 statuses are updated
  • 136,000 photographs are uploaded

That’s how active users are in creating/contributing content on Facebook. The right user generated content strategies can help you tap into that potential.

(TheSocialSkinny.com)
 
17. Billions of location-tagged posts are published on Facebook each year. Between August 2010 and September 2012, there were 17 billion such posts.

This signifies the potential that Facebook holds for marketing local businesses. Ensure that you have the right marketing strategy in place to make the most of it! (Gizmodo)
 
18. Facebook is available in 101 languages including Maltese, added in 2016. If you represent a global brand and are involved in multilingual marketing, you might want to consider reaching your audience in their native languages. (USAToday)
 
19. About 66% of Facebook users turn to the platform for news. PR firms have already begun using social networks for PR exercises and outreach. Several brands and digital agencies invest a lot of time and money in attempting to create viral content that could turn into “news” on the platform. (Journalism.org)
 
20. Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp collectively process about 60 billion messages a day, 3 times the number of normal SMSes sent globally.

Facebook has long been an important player in the chat market, and is now enjoying an unprecedented popularity. If chat-based marketing is a priority, you should consider Messenger and Whatsapp. (TheVerge.com)
 
21. Nearly 33% of US influencers who work with brands claim that they have seen most success on Facebook. If you have invested in influencer marketing, you might want to consider Facebook as one of your target platforms.

(SheSpeaks)
 
22. 70% marketers who participated in survey claimed that they use Facebook to acquire new customers, while 47% have said that the social network was their top influence for purchases. (Business2Community)
 
23. According to a HubSpot study, posts published on Facebook between 10pm and 11pm EST get about 88% more interactions than posts published otherwise. Posts with questions also get an average of 162% more interactions. (HubSpot)
 
24. Videos are shared more than any other type of content on Facebook. In fact, they’re shared 89.5 times (per video), significantly higher than the number of times photographs or text-based posts are shared on average. (MariSmith)
 
25. Custom audience based Facebook targeting ads have a 14% lower CPC and 64% COst Per Conversion than ads based on category or interest targeting. Further, Facebook ads that utilize custom audience targeting have 387% higher conversion rates than demographic targeting ads. (WishPond)
 
26. The Sponsored Place Check-In Story is the Facebook ad format with the highest click-through rate (CTR) at 3.2%. It also has the lowest CPC at $$0.11. The ad format with the lowest CTR is the inline Like format, at 0.03%. (Ibid. & SalesForce)
 
27. More frequent posting doesn’t necessarily mean the best engagement on Facebook. In fact, posting once/twice a day earns brands 40% higher engagement than publishing over three times. The takeaway? Quality matters more than quantity. (JeffBullas)
 
One way to ensure top quality once/two times a day is by curating content on DrumUp, or storing your best posts in content libraries and setting them on auto-post.

We just introduced the feature in our new update, and you can read more about it here.
 

Fun Facebook facts that you didn’t know about

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Just to lighten up the mix, we’ve curated some casual, fun facts about Facebook. Did you know that:
 
1. Mark Zuckerberg suffers from color blindness, and that’s partly why the Facebook icon is blue (not red or green or colors that require them). Blue is also a color that’s generally associated with trust and security (which is why blue is a popular choice for hospital walls). (NewYorker)
 
2. Al Pacino was technically the first face on Facebook. Back when the company was founded, Andrew McCollum, Zuckerberg’s friend from Harvard and co-founder of Facebook, designed a logo using the infamous actor’s face. (BusinessInsider)
 
3. Facebook’s first serious investor was Peter Thiel, co-founder of PayPal and a famous face in the VC and startup worlds. He invested $500,000 in the company the year it was founded (2004). Several years later, Thiel sold his stocks for over $1 billion. (CNN)
 
4. Co-founder of now inexistent startup Napster, Sean Parker, was instrumental in acquiring Facebook.com, the domain. Parker purchased the name that would transform media for $200,000, and was an important part of the growth spurt phase that caused Facebook to become virally popular. (Domain.me)
 
5. Originally, Facebook was built on a peer-to-peer file sharing system called Wirehog. Zuckerberg released the P2P file-sharing system once Thefacebook.com passed the threshold of 500,000 users, which then became the core element of the site. Wirehog was cast aside for worries of copyright infringement. (TheCrimson.com)


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Bonus

  • Also, originally, the ‘Like’ button was called the ‘Awesome’ button, until Zuckerberg vetoed it in 2007.
  • 2007 was also the year that Yahoo! Bid $1 billion to acquire Facebook, which Zuckerberg may have accepted had Yahoo’s CEO not lowered it to $850 million. Steve Jobs also publicly commended Zuckerberg for deciding not to sell out at that point.
  • Ever wondered why Facebook’s servers are never down? It’s probably because each downtime minute costs them about $24,420. In August 2014, the company lost $427,000 to 19 minutes of outage.
  • Globally, 600,000 hacker attacks are made at Facebook accounts everyday!
  • The last one before you leave – Want to visit Zuckerberg’s Facebook profile? Add a /4 after the social network’s home URL, it’ll take you there straight.

 
The best part about marketing is that it doesn’t come with predetermined limits or results that you can expect. You can push boundaries, experiment and achieve results that no one else has managed to date. Use these statistics as insights to shape your Facebook marketing strategy, and you’ll be surprised at what you can achieve.

Inline Image via Freepik.com