On October 4, 2012, Facebook announced a major milestone: they hit 1 Billion (that’s 1,000,000,000!) active users. The funny thing is they did it in a very low-key way, simply having a post from Mark Zuckerberg on their online Newsroom:
This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month.
If you’re reading this: thank you for giving me and my little team the honor of serving you.
Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.
I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.
That’s it. That’s the entire announcement.
They actually hit that number on September 14. It means that 1/7 of the world’s population uses Facebook at least once a month. Wow.
Here’s an even bigger statistic: according to the website Internet World Stats, as of December 31, 2011, there were 2,267,233,742 Internet users in the world. That would mean that nearly HALF of everyone who uses the Internet is on Facebook.
As staggering as these numbers are, what does it mean for the average small business who is using Facebook as a marketing tool?
It may be virtually impossible that your customers (potential, current and past) aren’t on Facebook. However, it also means there’s a lot of CLUTTER on Facebook! For those of you who believe that you only need to post “every once in a while,” it probably means that your posts aren’t being seen at all by those you want to reach.
Even posting once a day isn’t enough anymore. You need to post several times a day – including evenings and weekends – to try to rise above the clutter.
I realize I just panicked many people who thought that once a day was too much…and took too much time out of their day. It will take more time, but isn’t it worth it if it raises your recognition and helps build relationships?
The nice thing is that there are a variety of tools to help. You can use programs like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to schedule your posts. Even better, you can use Facebook’s own scheduling tool to set up posts in advance.
Personally, I sit down every morning and find two or three (up to five) articles that I think my Fans would be interested in. I then schedule these to post throughout the day, including the evening. Takes me less than 15 minutes to accomplish this. I also post “live” once or twice every day, too…or I try to. Sometimes I’ll have something that I think can’t wait, whether it’s a quick tip, relevant article, a cute cartoon, or I just want to make a comment.
What’s important is to develop the habit of posting. Once you get used to spending 15 or so minutes every day on your Facebook Page, it will become second nature.
Thoughts? Post your comments below!
