Amazing Facts About Facebook to Inspire Your Business
Facebook needs no introduction. In 2020, almost every 1 of 2 people have an account on the social network. The audience of the project has long crossed the mark of 3 billion, which is 40% of the world’s population and 60% of Internet users. Every 60 seconds that pass, 400 new members join the online community, 317,000 statuses are updated, 147,000 photos are uploaded, and 54,000 links appear. Impressive, right?
How to Come Up With a Startup That will Change the World
Let’s go back to 2003, when the Facebook story was just beginning. Mark Zuckerberg was 18. He was a sophomore psychology student at Harvard University. He had an argument with friends, Eduardo Saverin, Dustin Moskowitz, and Chris Hughes, about who was the hottest on campus. They decided to look for the answer by launching the Facemash website. Each registered participant could vote for their favorite photo. In the first 2 hours, the startup had 450 visitors and received 22,000 views of the photo album. The college administration didn’t like the idea. Zuckerberg was accused of violating confidentiality, privacy, copyright and was almost expelled. But can such little things stop a computer genius?
The next semester, Zuckerberg tried again with a new site, Thefacebook. Half the student population of Harvard signed up in the first month. In March, they were joined by Stanford, Columbia University, Yale, and soon most colleges in the United States and Canada. The success was obvious. Events began to unfold even faster after meeting Sean Parker, then the co-founder of Napster and the future the director of Facebook and mastermind of Spotify. By early summer, Zuckerberg dropped out and moved to Palo Alto, California, where the company’s headquarters are still located.
In 2005, Facebook got rid of their “The” prefix. The laconic domain name facebook.com cost $200,000. On September 26, 2006, the site became available to all residents of the planet over the age of 13 year. This date can be considered the second birthday of the social network. This is how Facebook became as we know and love.
Numbers That will Inspire (or Make You Envious)
Today Facebook is the number one social network and the third most popular site in the world after Google and YouTube. Every day, 1.79 billion people (a third of all the world’s inhabitants) drop in here to share life events and find out what’s new with their friends. The monthly audience of active users reaches 2.6 billion.
In 2007 Microsoft acquired a 1.6% stake in the company for $240 million – its total value at that time was estimated at $15 billion. By 2010, it had grown to $41 billion, a higher value had only Google and Amazon. In 2020, Facebook’s market capitalization surpassed the $800 billion mark, making it the fifth largest in the world after Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, and Alphabet.
In 2019, the company had a profit of $70.7 billion, 92% of which came from advertising on mobile devices. Mark Zuckerberg correctly estimated the potential of the mobile audience by launching several versions of his products at once: the classic Facebook application, Facebook Lite for slow Internet connections and low-performance devices, and offline Messenger This allows users to correspond with other social network users without being distracted by the news feed.
Other popular media brands are also owned by Facebook. As of the end of 2019, the conglomerate’s apps have been downloaded 16 billion times in total over the past 10 years, making Facebook the undisputed leader in the mobile segment. 3.14 billion people use at least one of the branded products at least once a month.
- WhatsApp is the most requested instant messaging service in 2020. Its audience has 2 billion active users, and the application itself has been downloaded more than 4.3 billion times in 10 years. The service was purchased in 2014 for $19 billion. WhatsApp has traditionally competed with Facebook Messenger, with 1.3 billion active users and 4.4 billion downloads.
- Instagram is ranked 4th in the most popular apps after Facebook, Messenger, and WhatsApp. It has been downloaded 2.7 billion times over the past 10 years. 500 million people daily and 1.08 billion monthly share their photos and stories with friends. Only the products listed above, YouTube and WeChat have more reach. The merger took place in 2012 and cost Facebook $1 billion.
- GIPHY is a recent addition to the Facebook family. The deal, worth $400 million, was announced in May 2020. By this time, the daily audience of the service has reached 700 million. The project has accumulated over 10 billion meme GIFs and stickers that have helped diversify communication on partner platforms like Twitter, TikTok, and Apple iMessage. Facebook plans to restrict the use of giphy content on third-party services, leaving this right only for its own social networks.
- Oculus VR is not so much about apps as it is about a new look at technology. The medium is the message. The 2014 acquisition of a leading VR headset developer allowed Facebook to announce to the world that the future is ours. VR technology continues to improve. Today the Oculus Rift and Oculus Quest are not only for in-depth immersion in video games, but also as a trainer for medical and search teams, for remote work, learning about other cultures, and amazing facts about the world. In 2019, Facebook announced a collaboration with Ray-Ban. The brands plan to release new Orion augmented reality glasses by 2023-2025.
How It Works: Facebook Facts from the Developers
Given the ever-growing audience and the colossal amount of information that users share, Facebook needs super-powerful servers. One of the unbelievable facts about the world is that social media user data is measured in 300 petabytes. To make it easier for you to understand this volume, each petabyte is equal to 1,000,000 gigabytes. If someone decided to digitize all the literary, scientific, and religious works written in different languages in the entire history of mankind, the full text would weigh 50 petabytes, a trifle by Facebook standards.
The functionality of Facebook is constantly expanding. Amazing fact to know is that one of the bonuses of the first version of the site was a peer-to-peer file exchange. The internal Wirehog service allowed the first 500,000 users to share files. However, due to fears of piracy and confusion with copyrights, this feature was abandoned back in 2006. Instead, the developers decided to focus on the interactive component of communication:
- In 2007, the first gaming applications were launched. Thanks to this, the number of visits, engagement, and time spent by users on the site increased significantly.
- In 2009, users were able to rate each other’s posts using a special thumbs up button It was originally supposed to mean “awesome” but in the end a more restrained version of “like” was adopted. In 2016 the range of emotions has expanded with the buttons “Love”, “Haha”, “Wow”, “Sad”, “Angry”. In 2019, the “Care” button was added to them.
- In 2011, users were able to use the first video chats on the Skype platform. In 2016, the video streaming function appeared. In 2017, the opportunity to share life events using stories became.
- In 2017, with the assistance of UNICEF, WFP, and the Red Cross, a social service was launched to inform family members about their location and condition in case of natural disasters.
The appearance of the site is also changing. Amazing fact: the website design, created in 2004 by Andrew McCallum, featured a photo of Al Pacino. It was true that behind the mask from the binary code, it was not easy to make out the actor’s face, and for most users he remained known as the “Facebook Guy”.
By the way, the blue color scheme was chosen for a reason. Mark Zuckerberg is a deuteranope. He poorly distinguishes between red and green shades, so he can fully appreciate the design of his brainchild only in blue. In addition, blue subconsciously creates a sense of security and is conducive to confidential communication. Users are more willing to share personal information this way.
Let’s Get Acquainted: User Statistics
Almost every friend, colleague, and parent has a social media account. There is certainly not a single person who does not know about Facebook. Not surprisingly, 190 million (57%) of American adults use the platform regularly. All over the world, the main users of the social network are millennials: men aged 18 to 34 and women from 25 to 34 years old. In 2020 the gender ratio has shifted: 56.4% of men compared to 43.6% of women.
The audience of the social network is rapidly growing up. Recently registered users are dominated by baby boomers and the silence generation. On the one hand, middle-aged people, for the most part, have long established accounts for themselves, so the proportion of newcomers in this segment is small. On the other hand, people born before 1964 can no longer deny the importance of technology. They actively purchase smartphones and tablets and quickly immerse themselves in the fascinating world of the Internet.This allows them to keep in touch with their families and friends.
51% of American teens use Facebook. This is not a bad figure. However, YouTube (85%), Instagram (72%), and Snapchat (69%) are more promising platforms for connecting with a younger audience. As of 2020, Tiktok has over 2 billion downloads worldwide and 100 million active users in the US. At the same time, the main visitors to the platform are 10-19 year olds (32.5%) and young people from 20 to 29 (29.5%).
Pewresearch
When developing a marketing strategy, be sure to take into account user demographic statistics. It is important for a business to know not only who is using products and services, but also which channel will best convey information about the brand. To connect with the target audience, you need to speak the same language and use the same social networks.
Pewresearch
What’s on Your Mind: What Do Users Do on Social Network
50% of users aged 18-24 start their day by reading the news feed. At the same time, the peak of visits to Facebook falls on the lunch break – 1-3 p.m. Overall, the average American spends 37 minutes on social network every day. According to eMarketer, 65% of users use this time to view photos, 57% share content with friends, 46% watch videos, 43% send content they like in private messages, 38% read news, 33% work online, 15% shop, and 7% promote their own brand.
Every day, 500 million users watch 100 million hours of video, 85% do it with the sound muted. To convey ideas to consumers, your video should be as informative and clear as possible. It’s a good idea to add catchy text or subtitles to your footage. The priority is for videos uploaded directly to Facebook. It has a better chance of getting into the smart news feed. In addition, it starts playing automatically and gets 478% more response than videos from YouTube or other third-party resources.
2020 has shown how important it is to stay connected. Facebook has become an important platform for remote work. 87% of users use it for correspondence with colleagues, solving work issues in a general chat format, sending files, etc. In addition to the main functionality, a separate Workplace by Facebook service was launched. It provides familiar groups, chats, rooms, and video conferencing, allowing even large offices to work remotely.
How to Present a Brand on Social Media
85% of US shoppers use social media. 58% follow a page of at least one brand. Competition between companies is very high. 87.1% of US entrepreneurs have their own social media page, and 90% of them aim to increase brand awareness, 70% are working on reputation, and 71% are interested in active communication with the user community.
Facebook allows you to create a powerful connection between business and customers. But keep in mind that the average organic reach of a post is only 5.5%, according to Rob Anderson, CEO of Brand Hubb. To remedy the situation, you can use stories, promo videos, and other attention-grabbing content. However, the chances of a user seeing your message are still low. During the time between sessions, the average user accumulates 1,500 unviewed stories from friends and likes. The News Feed algorithm selects about 300 of them as the most relevant. It is problematic to watch even this amount of content in one online session.
The best way to promote your brand on Facebook is to create quality content and grow your audience of subscribers. The more likes your page has, the more effective your ads are. People trust people. If a random user sees that one of his friends has liked the brand’s page, his loyalty increases. Thanks to the social context, ads get 50% more engagement and 35% more sales.
Guess which social media account remains the most popular year after year? That’s right, the official Facebook page with 8,520,653 likes and 9,179,396 followers. Such an indicator seems unattainable even for popular brands, not to mention beginners. It is precisely the high bar that any business should strive for.
