We are asked a lot about who is on Facebook, how companies should interact with their customers and prospective customers and why Facebook even makes a difference to them. The way I answer it is pretty simple: Using Facebook is important because what it allows you to do is to create positive interactions with customers (aka Fans). When this happens, they are more likely to buy and more likely to tell others about your company.
The second part… the viral marketing aspect seems to be the golden egg of social media for marketers as a whole. Don’t we all just think how great it would be if everyone around the Social sphere would just tell everyone else about how great we are? Maybe it would lesson the burden of our jobs and improve the outcome of our campaigns.
But I digress, the real question at hand is about who is on Facebook and what do they want or need. Well, here are a few statistics I’ve pulled from recent months you should consider.
QUICK FACEBOOK STATISTICS YOU SHOULD PROBABLY KNOW:
- According to Facebook themselves, there are more than 750 million active users of Facebook worldwide, with more than 375 million of them logging in every single day.
- There are more than 250 million active users currently accessing Facebook through their mobile devices. People that use Facebook on their mobile devices are twice as active on Facebook than non-mobile users.
- According to Comscore, Facebook represents the largest share of time spent by US internet users of the top five most-visited websites. Facebook increased its share of total US internet time 71% between December 2009 (7.2%) and December 2010 (12.3%).
- Almost three in four (73%) online US consumers have opened a Facebook account. Sixty-five percent are active Facebook users, and 42% are fans. The fan percentage rises to 64% among Facebook users.
- Local businesses make up 17.6% of Facebook fan pages, according to financial services firm Wedbush, while companies come in at 6.3% and products at 3%. Interests, musicians and public figures are also high on the list.
- 34% of US social network users told ROI Research they were at least somewhat more loyal to brands they were fans of on Facebook. At least half said they had become more likely to talk about, recommend or purchase a company’s products after they began following the company. FYI – Twitter actually edged out Facebook in this study.
- According to the “American Millennials” survey, conducted by Barkley in advance found that over half of millennials (ages 16 to 34) liked checking out brands on social media sites. Nearly one in four millennials (23.5%) interacted with content from a brand’s Facebook page at least once a daily, vs. 17% of older adults who did the same. Millennials were also 4.4 percentage points more likely to interact with brand content between one and six times per week. While similar shares of both age groups interacted at lower frequencies, overall older adults were nearly twice as likely never to engage with brand content on Facebook.
- A report from the Pew Internet & American Life Project says that of the adults who use the Internet, nearly two-thirds use social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. That’s up slightly from a year ago. Among Baby Boomers aged 50 to 64, 32 percent say they use a social networking site on a typical day. That’s up from 20 percent a year ago.
- According to data collected in January 2011 by Lucid Marketing, more than nine in 10 moms use Facebook (93%) to communicate.
- More than 40% of social network users told ROI Research that brands should communicate with fans only once or twice a month, and another 26% thought weekly communication was sufficient. Only 10% of respondents wanted to hear from brands at least daily.
- Fifty-five percent (55%) of Facebook users have liked a company and then decided they no longer wanted to see its posts. The most-frequently cited reason Facebook users give for “unliking” a brand is that it posts too frequently, according to a report from ExactTarget and CoTweet “The Social Break-up.” 44% of Facebook users list this as a top reason for unliking a brand they once liked on Facebook. Virtually tying over posting, 43% say the brand has an overcrowded wall. Other leading reasons include content becoming boring and/or repetitive (38%), and only liking a company to take advantage of a one-time offer (26%).
What do all these stats mean? It appears that consumers engage brands on Facebook, but there is a fine line to walk before you scare them off. Controlling the Facebook experience your fans get from you is your #1 priority.