Amy Quinn pitched me this morning to take a look at her new blog post: “The Facebook Marketing Toolbox: 100 Tools and Tips to Tap the Facebook Customer Base”. While we get a lot of these and can’t write about them all, this is one of those comprehensive and valuable posts that many marketers will find helpful.
Amy and the Inside CRM Editors have compiled a comprehensive and useful list of Facebook resources, how-to’s, background information and targeting strategies in one very helpful article. If you are considering marketing your organization on Facebook, we encourage you to check this post out. You can find it here: The Facebook Marketing Toolbox.
While we’re on the topic of Facebook, it seems like a good time to take the pulse of this social marketing phenomenon.
Current Facebook Stats
According to Facbook, there are now over 62 million “active” users, with an average of 250,000 new registrations per day.They claim over 65 billion pages views per month, and note that people spend an average of 20 minutes on the site every day. To be sure, those are some impressive numbers.
Facebook International?
Recently, Facebook began working on translating the site into different languages in order to make the site available internationally. This should have the effect of reaching a wider global audience and increasing Facebook’s user base, making it an even more valuable target for marketing campaigns.
But… is Facebook worth it?
According to Hitwise, over 72% of all U.S. social network traffic in 2007 went to… well, actually it went to MySpace. Now, while Facebook’s traffic increased 50% last year and MySpace traffic decreased 8%, these numbers do serve as a reminder that what is currently “all the rage” isn’t necessarily currently the most valuable property from a marketing point of view. However, it should be clearly noted that Facebook is making huge gains on venerable MySpace in terms of volume.
Facebook has had it’s share of criticism in the past, and perhaps not all of it undeserved. Facebook’s now infamous “Beacon” system met with less than overwhelming enthusiasm from the tech community in general, and even markets had questions about the system. Users can now opt-out of the Beacon system.
But is Facebook worth the investment of time and energy for your organization? The answer is… it depends. If you have the resources to invest in doing it “right”, if you are confident you will be reaching an appropriate audience, and if the company in general is fairly comfortable with the whole concept of social media marketing, then, yes, it might be right for you.
Remember, Facebook is not the only social network out there… there’s also Twitter, LinkedIn and Google’s upcoming OpenSocial platform, among many others. If your organization chooses to engage with the audiences of these networks, it’s a good idea to investigate the local mores and tools before launching a strategy.
If you are interested in investigating Facebook as a marketing channel further, the following resources may be helpful:
- The Facebook Marketing Bible: 24
- The Updated Unofficial and Smartass Guide to Using Facebook
- CIO: Facebook CEO Appearance on 60 Minutes Leaves Many Underwhelmed
- Facebook as a B2B Marketing Tool
- How to Market Yourself & Your Company on Facebook
- Facebook Marketing: Articles and Resources
- Wikipedia: Facebook
- Mahalo: Facebook