A good birthday for Facebook

February 9, 2010

February marks a milestone in the social networking calendar as Facebook celebrates its birthday.

The site turned six last week and is showing impressive figures of late, with double the amount of users (now standing at 400 million worldwide), compared to this time last year.  Econsultancy statistics also say that 50 per cent of active users log into the site each day – effectively 200m people every 24 hours!

With such huge traffic statistics and progression over 12 months, it’s no wonder Facebook continues to be a big deal for brands.  Many still regard Facebook as a great way to reach their audience.  Others who have been slower on the uptake are now starting to catch on.

BMW UK and Volvo have recently launched Facebook campaigns – BMW with an official fanpage, Volvo with an application to promote their new clean diesel C30 DRive car.  Volvo’s app increased their number of fans from 60,000 to 400,000.

Whilst speculation remains over how Facebook can monetise the site and cash in on 400 million users, you can’t dispute how far the site has come in six years.  Figures released last week from the GSMA also show that Facebook is dominating the lives of mobile internet users in the UK, with around 2.2bn minutes spent browsing the social network during December alone.

Facebook has certainly changed the game for consumer-facing companies, and those wanting to reach and influence everyday people need to understand it.

Happy birthday Facebook!

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