Why Use Facebook for Business? Here’s Why…
Facebook has been the undisputed ‘king of social’ ever since it launched in 2004. Take a look at last year’s growth figures and you’ll be astounded at just how big its reach really is.
Daily active users (DAUs) reached 1.04 billion on average for December 2015, an increase of 17% year-over-year. An even bigger increase was seen in active mobile users. Mobile DAUs were 934 million on average for December 2015, an increase of 25% year-over-year. That’s over 90% of all Facebook users!
Similarly, Monthly active users (MAUs) reached 1.59 billion in December 2015, an increase of 14% year-over-year. Again a huge percentage of those were mobile users – 1.44 billion, an increase of 21% year-over-year.
‘2015 was a great year for Facebook. Our community continued to grow and our business is thriving,’ said Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO. ‘We continue to invest in better serving our community, building our business, and connecting the world.’ Take a look at their report here.
While those figures are pretty incredible, the real jaw-dropping happens when you look at Facebook’s annual turnover. Revenue for 2015 was $17.93 billion… yes you read that correctly, that’s $17,928,000,000 (or approximately £12,400,000,000). Phew, that’s a lot of zeros! Mobile advertising revenue represented approximately 80% of that, up from 69% in 2014.
Zuckerberg also announced recently that Facebook users are now watching over 100 million hours of video per day. Should YouTube be worried? Unlikely, since most of the videos are links to YouTube videos in any case!
Is there any end to Facebook’s dominance of the social media market? Many new networks have come and gone, but some have stood the test of time (and some like Google+ still haven’t even started!). Yet even the likes of Twitter, which has 320 million MAUs, isn’t happy with its own platform. Recent changes have included dropping the ‘favourite’ in favour of the Facebook-aligned ‘like’ button. Rumours abound that it will soon be dropping its 140-character limit too. Everyone it seems wants in on the Facebook magic.
The conclusion? Facebook isn’t going anywhere! Last week Mark Zuckerberg announced his objective to reach 5 billion Facebook users by 2030. Will it happen? If he says he can do it, we certainly believe he can!