Facebook will be the smart business tool of 2011. Facebook is becoming the fastest growing social network of all time, outstripping google, youtube and twitter. Have a look at some of the statistics.

[box type=”info”]
  • More than 500 million users
  • 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day
  • More than 35 million users update their status each day
  • More than 3 million active pages on Facebook [/box]

Now I could go on and on about statistics with Facebook, but the fact is this, it is getting bigger and bigger. Facebook was initially considered just a place for kids to hang out and share pictures with each other. But something happened along the way.

The inventors of Facebook stumbled across the most amazing viral tool in the history of the internet.

The ‘LIKE' Button

The Viral Nature of Facebook

Facebook News Food

If you have a Facebook account you will have a news feed. When you login, you will see status updates of everyone that you have friended depending on what you click on. You can go to home, click on Top News or Most Recent.

News Feed Options

You will see that you have a few options on each post update. You can like, comment or you can share. If you perform any of those actions, anyone who was your friend will see a status update of what you have just done. They can choose to view what you have done and join in the conversation, like or share as well.

3 Actions Available

If your friends take an action their friends will see their actions and their friends will see their friends have done. This is the power of Facebook. Anything can become Viral because Facebook is encouraging people to interact with their friends.

Status Updates

Facebook have created 2 features in facebook, groups and fanpages. Groups have a limit of 5000 members total that can join a group, but fanpages can have an unlimited number of followers or people who ‘LIKE' their page. Not only that, Facebook are really gearing up for business's to utilise their fanpages to drive more business's onto facebook.

There are many reports that many major companies are turning to facebook marketing and concentrating on their facebook fanpages due to the fact that they can literally deliver an update, message or deal to their fans instantly. Couple that with the fact that 50% of users login to their account every single day, that indicates that every 2 days, most people login to their account.

Also fanpages require a very simple action. Click ‘LIKE' If you can provide some incentive for people to click like, you can instantly have a fanbase that you can guarantee to make contact with just about every single day, that is free. Now that is powerful marketing.

Below are some statistics of the largest Facebook Fanpages in the U.S . Imagine if you could contact all of those people, via 1 update on your fanpage.