My 10th birthday consisted of copious amounts of cake and lollies (Australian slang for candy) with my friends and family. It’s fair to say Facebook’s 10th birthday is a bigger occasion to the world, for many reasons. Facebook has transformed the way we live and interact like non other.
Interesting Facts about Facebook
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- As of December 2013, there have been more than 6 billion Likes per day on average and more than 400 billion photos shared on Facebook.
- As of January 2014, 77.2 billion all-time location-tagged posts (check-ins).
Why do people use Facebook?
A recent report into Facebook by PewResearch made some interesting discoveries. It found the most popular reason for men was ‘sharing with many people at once’. On the other hand, it found the most popular reason for women was ‘seeing photos or videos’.
The most surprising aspect of this study was that it found,
“44% of Facebook users “like” content posted by their friends at least once a day, with 29% doing so several times per day.”
What made this stat interesting is the finding that,
‘10% change or update their own status on Facebook on a daily basis, with 4% updating their status several times per day. Some 25% of Facebook users say that they never change or update their own Facebook status.”
It paints an interesting portrait of Facebook users; we don’t like to share what we’re always thinking but thoroughly enjoy seeing what other people are doing.
Why Does Business Use Facebook?
A recent study by emarketer found there plenty of room for Facebook to grow, with the ever increasing use of Facebook on mobile phones being the main driver. It estimates the overall mobile Facebook population will increase by more than 50% between this year and 2017, the end of eMarketer’s forecast period.
For business, this means social and mobile go together which represents an opportunity to be at the heartbeat and the credit card of consumers.
Facebook appears to be a significantly more successful social media platform for businesses than twitter. Social media analyst Venturebeat used Curebit, a platform that measures sharing on social to find that;
- Facebook shares generate 30 percent more new customer sales than Twitter. That’s not a big edge, but the massive difference is in volume of shares, which is ten times greater.
- 35 percent of the shares via Curebit’s platform are via Facebook, versus just 3.2 percent via Twitter. That translates into 56 percent of site traffic via Facebook compared to 3.2 percent via Twitter.
- Most importantly, 19.3 percent of sales are due to Facebook, compared to just 1.5 percent via Twitter.
Has Facebook Reached its Peak?
Does everything that go up have to come down? Can Facebook avoid the pitfalls Myspace couldn’t?
One interesting point comes from Market research firm iStrategyLabs which found in a recent report that shows Facebook has lost over 11 million addressable high school and college-age members over the past three years. Furthermore, high school Facebook membership has dropped a whopping 58.9% since 2011, while college Facebook membership has dropped a similar 59.1%.
Jeffrey I. Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future has also warned about the dangers Facebook faces;
“Social media users – teens and Millennials especially – are craving to be heard…Microblogs like Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr are becoming the most powerful way to deliver their messages. It’s all about having a highly visible personal presence online that can be communicated quickly – if anyone is listening.”
The Future of Facebook
While it is hard to imagine Facebook fading away into the sunset given the size of its user-base, there is a significant chance of its domination over the social networking space slipping away with time. For now, it is here to stay and no doubt will be playing an important part in many of our lives for years to come. Happy 10th Birthday Facebook!