The Business of Facebook – Infographic

Written by Zac Johnson
social social social

When it comes to the users of Facebook, average users and internet marketers both see the social network in two completely different lights. The average user can’t wait to see the latest status updates and photos from their “friends”. While the internet marketer can’t wait to tap into the latest set of demographics and targets for new users and to create a new stream of ad campaigns to flow through the hundreds of millions of users currently on Facebook.

No matter if you are just an addicted user of Facebook, or currently mastering their Facebook Ads platform as a revenue source, you should find the following stats and information quite amazing.

With Facebook planning to launch their IPO stock later in the year, will the growth and success of Facebook keep jumping higher and higher. Does Facebook deserve a $50 BILLION evaluation? Only time will tell, but I’d like to think so… and these astounding numbers don’t lie.

The following infographic is from the latest issue of FastCompany, in an article called “The Business of Facebook“. One of my favorite points in the infographics is “Analysts estimate that Facebook pulled in $1.86 BILLION in advertising in 2010. That’s expected to grow 118% this year, to $4 billion.“… how much of this is due to affiliate marketing, and how will Facebook Ads continue to change their ad platform, advertising policies and feelings towards affiliate marketing?

Other key statistics from the Facebook infographic include:

  • Facebook has 610,736,920 MEMBER PROFILES. That’s once for every ELEVEN people on the planet.
  • Based on page views and users, Facebook is the NO. 2 site in the U.S., behind Google and ahead of YouTube and Yahoo.
  • EVERY 60 SECONDS ON FACEBOOK, USERS send 230,000 messages, update 95,000 statuses, write 80,000 wall posts, tag 65,000 photos, share 50,000 links—and affirm or disparage them all with half a million comments.
  • Zynga, Facebook’s biggest app developer, has 19 games that attract 275 MILLION users a month, sabotaging about a kajillion hours of productivity. (Damn you, CityVille!)
  • Facebook takes a 30% cut of all revenue generated through its virtual currency, Facebook Credits. Virtual goods for sale on the site make up an estimated $835 MILLION market.
  • AMERICANS make up 24% of users, followed by Indonesians (6%), Brits (5%), and Turks (4$).
  • Brands with the MOST fans on Facebook: Coca-Cola (21.6 million),Starbucks (19 million), Oreo (16.2 million), Disney (15.6 million), and Red Bull (14.7 million).

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27 Replies to “The Business of Facebook – Infographic”

  1. Nice Infographic.

    Something that caught my attention and have been wondering for a while is the amount facebook makes from credits, and it's 835 million. Not sure if that's just 2010 or total.

    Facebook is testing new methods for advertising because they want to expand their income so they're trying category targeting and others as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they make 10 bilion in 2012.

    1. As they continue to expand and open up new advertising methods, I wouldn't be surprised to see 10 billion in ad revenue as well. Just wait til some of the big name brands start advertising across facebook!

  2. Wow. These numbers are insane. Just shows you how big a market the Internet is and the potential your business can have if you have the right product. Where would Facebook be without the internet..

  3. The thing that stood out the most to me was the amount of fans big brands like Coca Cola and Starbucks have. Twenty million is absolutely insane.. I'm happy when my facebook fan pages have a number of likes into the 3 or 4 figures..
    My recent post There’s a first time for everything

    1. Imagine having 20 million fans that actually like your product and are willing to share and expose that to others. Then you can just send a message to all 20 million with a click… and no mailing list hosting costs!

  6. The fact that Red Bull is fifth on that list of brands with the greatest number of followers on Facebook was actually pretty shocking to me. I decided to look up all of the brands and their current number of followers (11/27/11 – 8:10am CST):

    Coca-Cola – 23,857,795
    Starbucks – 20,329,078
    Oreo – 17,471,025
    Disney – 18,597,082
    Red Bull – 16,565,708

    So, it seems as of currently Disney is 3rd and Oreo is 4th on the list of the brands with the most fans on Facebook.

    During the time it takes to produce and cycle these infographics they have a bad habit of going out of date!

    Nevertheless, still pretty amazing stuff!

    1. The top brands can also attribute their rank on the power list, to how much they are actually involved in social media and run ad campaigns. Wouldn't you think Pepsi would rank in the top 5 as well?

      1. Actually, based on their ad campaigns and use of social media I am not all that surprised. If you look at the top dogs (Starbucks, Coca Cola, etc. ), these guys are all engaging with their customers across all platforms. When I say engaging, I don't mean merely asking questions or posting brand-related content, but interacting with customers that take the time to post a message on their wall or send out a tweet. The difference in engagement is everything.

        Check out the Pepsi Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/#!/pepsi

        Check out the Coca-Cola Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/#!/COCACOLA

        This difference is even evident on Facebook. Coca-Cola allows people that have liked them to write on their wall and then subsequently engages with them, whereas Pepsi only allows individuals to comment on questions or brand messages that they push out.

        In all honesty, Coca-Cola is crushing Pepsi by out customer-caring and out customer-engaging them.

        Pepsi, on the other hand is seemingly using these platforms to push out ad campaigns. This causes much less pull from the other direction, thus much fewer interested / engaged customers.

        My recent post The Hybrid Marketing Approach

  9. Massive money to be made from pushing affiliate offers through Facebook ads, though they keep making it harder and harder to get approved.

  12. These numbers are insane it shows you just how big of a powerhouse Facebook has become. They are Googles only real competitor in terms of advertising dollars. Facebook is a lot cheaper to advertise on than Google adwords which will bring a lot of internet marketers to Facebook for their advertising needs. P.S. The Social network was a great movie for those of you who did not see it. Great post!
    My recent post How I Make Money Blogging And You Can Too In 2011

  13. Wow, those numbers are incredible. Once Facebook goes public we can expect to see a lot more of this company pervading into our daily lives, both online and off. Look out, Google!!!
    My recent post Friendly Robotics Robotic Lawn Mower 85400 RoboMower RM400

  14. Facebook might be a competitor when it comes to advertising platforms, nevertheless, Google is something you actually need. Facebook has many advantages but isn't a necessity.
    My recent post Top 10 SEO Tools PRO

  15. Any sort of traffic engine deserves to be around for all of us bloggers to take advantage of.
    610,736,920 figures is a lot of traffic. I can sure do with some of that traffic Thanks for the internet ride FB where traffic generating dreams are made.

  17. There are many interesting uses for Facebook Apps & groups. Came across these that show some range. Thought it might spark some ideas.
    My recent post Inkatechnology Site Map

  18. Wow – I had no idea so many people were on facebook… I actually didn't know half of these statistics, to tell the truth!! Thanks for sharing, really eye-opening article. 🙂

    Laurie

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