Because Facebook is the largest social networking site in the earth, with more than 2.ii billion monthly active users, it should come up equally no surprise that there are many wild and interesting Facebook statistics. Mind-blowing Facebook statistics and facts include those buried in the company's origins, to its newest projects, equally it continues to ensure its authorisation and ability throughout much of the world, provide insights to investors, marketers, and even your boilerplate Facebook user.

Facebook is the largest social networking site in the world. Cheque out these wild and interesting facts! 🤓 Click to Tweet

Origins of Facebook's Social Media Revolution

Facebook was founded past Mark Zuckerberg, along with fellow Harvard Academy students—and roommates—Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dustin Moskovitz, and Chris Hughes on Feb four, 2004.

Facebook founders
Facebook founders (Image source: Le Journal de Montréal)

The origins of what today is a powerhouse company with unprecedented reach was a site Zuckerberg created chosen "Facemash." This site pulled photos from the online "confront books" of the nine houses of Harvard and asked users to choose the "hotter" person.

Facesmash
Facesmash (Paradigm source: IncomeDiary)

Needless to say, campus administrators were non impressed. They close down the site and threatened Zuckerberg with expulsion from the elite school. Undeterred, Zuckerberg got another thought. This time, Zuckerberg decided to put the campus educatee directories with photos and basic information (known equally "face books") online. The idea wasn't exactly Zuckerberg's, as Harvard already had plans to do the same affair. However, Zuckerberg idea it was ridiculous that it was taking the schoolhouse then long to put them upwardly, so he congenital his own site. The site was initially launched as "TheFacebook.com," which was only available to Harvard students, before being opened upwards to students in the Boston expanse and those attending Ivy League schools. By 2006, it was open to anyone with electronic mail who was at least 13 years former.

Thefacebook
Thefacebook (Image source: The Wayback Machine)

Of course, even before Facebook was opened upward to everyone, Zuckerberg establish himself swamped with legal trouble as fellow students Cameron Winklevoss, Tyler Winklevoss, and Divya Narendra sued him for allegedly stealing their idea. A settlement landed each of them 1.ii meg shares in the visitor. When incorporated in 2004, Sean Parker stepped up every bit Facebook's first president, and the company moved to Palo Alto, California after receiving a $500,000 angel investment from PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel. The following year, the visitor dropped "the" from its proper name and moved to its current domain "facebook.com", after purchasing it for $200,000. In 2007, Facebook introduced Facebook Marketplace, which allowed users to mail classified ads. As well that year, the Facebook Application Programmer platform was introduced, allowing developers to create applications and games on Facebook. The following yr was a big one for the social media behemothic. In 2008, it established its first international headquarters in Dublin, Ireland. Additionally, Facebook Chat was rolled out, forth with features such as People You May Know, the Facebook Wall, and Facebook Connect.

Digging into Facebook Demographics

How many users does Facebook have? Bank check out these Facebook user statistics: As of the second quarter of 2018, Facebook boasted 2.23 billion monthly active users, with 68% of Americans using the social media platform. Though Americans heavily rely on the social media site, more than than 85% of Facebook users come from exterior the US and Canada.

Monthly Facebook users
Monthly Facebook users (Prototype source: Statista)

Facebook croaky the 100-million-user mark on Baronial 26, 2008. By July 2010, it had half a billion users. The following year, Facebook crossed the line on 1 trillion page views. That same twelvemonth, Nielsen plant that Facebook was the 2d most visited site in the US and the well-nigh popular social networking site. So, in September 2012, Facebook reached 1 billion users, hitting 2 billion users in 2017. Though Facebook is fairly pop with nearly all demographics, it'southward losing traction with teens. Only 51% of teens aged 13-17 use Facebook, while other social media platforms practice much improve with that demographic: 85% are on YouTube, 72% on Instagram, and 69% on Snapchat. The most contempo numbers for these teens show a meaning decrease from the 71% of teens who were using Facebook three years ago.

Teens using Facebook
Teens using Facebook (PEW Research Center)

When teasing apart the data on teens, one interesting Facebook stat rises to the elevation, which is that teens in lower-income families gravitate toward Facebook. Though more than women utilise Facebook than men—74% versus 62%—the largest group of Facebook users are males aged 25-34, who brand up eighteen% of all users.

Facebook users by age and gender
Facebook users past age and gender (Image source: Statista)

With so many people buzzing effectually on Facebook, it's heed-bravado to realize that whatsoever given user is only separated from another by just iii.57 degrees of separation. Though the average Facebook user has 338 friends, they only consider 28% of their friends to be genuine or close friends.

Facebook average degrees of separation
Facebook average degrees of separation (Image source: Facebook Research)

Another crazy Facebook statistic is that the average Facebook user is connected to fewer genuine friends than people they've never met in person, which comprises 39% of users' connections. And, by way of other interesting Facebook statistics, it turns out that 47% of parents are friends with their children on the social media platform.

Facebook friends with parents
Facebook friends with parents (Image source: PEW Research Center)

Facebook Statistics on Data and Usage

Facebook generates iv petabytes of information per mean solar day—that'southward a million gigabytes. All that data is stored in what is known every bit the Hive, which contains most 300 petabytes of data. This enormous amount of content generation is without a doubtfulness continued to the fact that Facebook users spend more time on the site than users spend on any other social network, putting in about an hour a twenty-four hours. If you're non certain if you're an above-boilerplate Facebook user, you tin now accept advantage of the site'southward tool "Your Time on Facebook" to figure out, you guessed it, how much time you spend on the site.

Minutes spent per day on social apps
Minutes spent per solar day on social apps (Image source: Recode)

One reason information technology's important for Facebook users to continue tabs on their usage is the addictive nature of the site. About three-quarters of Facebook users visit the site daily, with 51% visiting the site several times a day.

Daily usage Facebook
Daily usage Facebook (Image source: PEW Research Middle)

In fact, a recent survey past Harris Poll revealed that users found Facebook to be the hardest social media site to abjure from using. Although Zuckerberg is a programmer, he really majored in psychology, which may account for his insights into developing a site that is and then addictive. The number of people getting involved with the site is constantly increasing, with about 400 users signing up for Facebook each minute. Of course, in that one minute, a lot more happens on Facebook than merely 400 people joining. Every 60 seconds, 510,000 comments are posted, 293,000 statuses are updated, 4 million posts are liked, and 136,000 photos are uploaded. Only, that'due south not enough for Facebook. Looking for ways to increase interactions with posts and advertisements, Facebook released the "reactions" pick in 2016. More than 300 billion reactions were used in the year following the release of the characteristic. Of class, not all interactions, reactions, or fifty-fifty accounts on Facebook are legit. In fact, Facebook deleted 583 one thousand thousand false accounts in the first iii months of 2018. Even with the removal of millions of accounts, the steady increase in the number of Facebook users meant that there were more and more posts contending for users' attention. Facebook admitted that at any given time, there are more than 1,500 stories competing for a space in a user's newsfeed. Yet, Facebook merely chooses most 300 stories to appear in a user'southward feed. How these stories are selected changed in 2018 when Facebook announced adjustments to its algorithm, prioritizing postal service from users' friends and family members. Though many Facebook users' rejoiced about the change, it was bad news for companies banking on organic reach. Now, they demand to rely more on paid advertisements to cease up in a user'south newsfeed. Zuckerberg admitted that after the new algorithm overhaul, people were spending less fourth dimension on the site: downward 50 million minutes per twenty-four hours, which is just about 1-two minutes per user. Non only that, for the outset time since its inception, Facebook experienced a subtract in its United states and Canada user base in Q4 of 2017. It went from 185 million in Q3 to 184 million in Q4. Although a million users might seem similar a drop in the bucket, it'south important to note that each monthly active user from the US and Canada brings in an average of $27 in revenue.

Facebook daily active users in the US and Canada
Facebook daily active users in the US and Canada (Image source: Recode)

Making it a Mobile Visitor

In 2014, Zuckerberg said, "We're a mobile company now." Check out these Facebook usage statistics: He wasn't joking; Facebook focused on making mobile devices a part of their key strategies. Now, 95.one% of people access Facebook with their smartphones, which let them to consume content faster than when using their desktop.

Facebook device usage
Facebook device usage (Image source: Statista)

A whopping 95.1% of people access Facebook with their smartphones! 😲 Click to Tweet

A full of 47% of all Facebook users access the site solely on their mobile device. In fact, the company reached 1 billion mobile-merely monthly users in Nov 2016. A few months earlier, it crossed the line of 1 billion mobile agile users daily.

Facebook mobile monthly active users
Facebook mobile monthly agile users (Images source: VentureBeat)

In 2017, Facebook released Facebook Lite and Messenger Lite, apps which were designed for people living in developing countries with slow internet. Equally of June that twelvemonth, there were about 200 million Facebook Lite users. Given all the things that mobile devices can practice, it's heed-bravado to realize that 19% of all the time spent on such devices is spent on Facebook. Clearly, Facebook has done an extraordinary job coming through as a "mobile company".

US time spent by app category
US fourth dimension spent by app category (Image source: Flurry)

Video Tagged as Next Megatrend

Zuckerberg famously said that video is the adjacent 'megatrend' later mobile. It's not only that video is following hot on mobile'south heels, it'southward that mobile devices have paved the way for video content to grow in popularity: people are five times more likely to watch Facebook videos on their phone.

On average, Facebook generates more than 8 billion daily views of video content; more than 100 one thousand thousand video hours are watched per mean solar day. Though video content only makes up 3% of content on Facebook, it garners much more appointment than other types of posts.

Videos are shared an average of 89.v times more than other content on Facebook, making them the most shared blazon of content on the site. Additionally, native Facebook videos have 10 times more reach than YouTube links, which is one of the reasons more than and more companies are uploading video content through their Facebook page, rather than simply sharing links.

Facebook video share averages
Facebook video share averages (Image source: Mari Smith)

An odd Facebook stat nigh users consuming video content on the site is that 85% of users watch video with the sound off, and 80% of users find it annoying when a video auto-plays with sound. Because of this, captioned video ads can increase views past 12%. Another way users are adjusting their videos to get ameliorate results is by making square videos, which take up 78% more than space in the mobile newsfeed than landscape videos. Even so some other adjustment Facebook has made to promote video content was the introduction of Facebook Live, which was introduced in 2016. Since its inception, there accept been about 3.v billion broadcasts watched past about 2 billion people. The trend of using Facebook Alive is rapidly growing; broadcasts from pages take increased 50% in the past year. And, information technology pays to go live often, as alive videos are watched for 3 times longer during the bodily stream than the replay.

Figuring Out Facebook Finance Figures

Facebook held its initial IPO in 2012, to a tune of $104 billion, making information technology the largest valuation to date for a newly listed public company. Information technology raised $xvi billion, making information technology the third largest in United states of america history. In 2010, Facebook, valued at $41 billion, became the third largest web company in the US, just backside Google and Amazon. Co-ordinate to the company's posted 2018 second-quarter earnings, Facebook brutal short of its projected earnings of $13.36 billion with actual earnings of $13.23 billion. Ad revenue also pulled upwards short of the anticipated $13.16 billion, garnering an bodily $13.04 billion. Facebook did say that information technology expected its revenue growth rates to be lower this year due to the visitor focusing on Stories—which practise non generate income—and beefing upward privacy and security for General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) compliance. The dip in earnings could also be attributed to a slew of negative public relations issues associated with privacy and the 2016 US presidential ballot. Though at that place are many fiscal accolades in Facebook's portfolio, they as well have had some less savory situations, such as becoming the first company to lose over $100 billion in stock in a single day, which was on July 26, 2018.

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Facebook Acquisitions

For many Facebook users, there is no divergence between Facebook and Messenger. Even so, the company released Messenger every bit a standalone app in March 2011, later acquiring it from Beluga. Well-nigh 1.ii billion people now use Messenger. However, Messenger wasn't enough for Facebook's portfolio of messaging apps. In February 2014, the company purchased WhatsApp for $19 billion—its largest acquisition to date. The goal of the acquisition was for the company to break into the international messaging scene. A major part of the reason for the hefty price tag for WhatsApp was its rapid user growth, calculation upward to 1 million users per day. Another major acquisition for the social media behemothic was its $1 billion takeover of Instagram in 2012, a calendar month before its IPO. The purchase turned a social media rival into Facebook'southward standalone photo app. Looking toward the future of entertainment and social media, Facebook caused Oculus VR for $two billion, paid in cash and stock, in March 2014. Oculus VR is a company that makes virtual reality headsets for gaming. When asked what his vision for the company was, Zuckerberg said that he plans to use Oculus VR for more than than merely gaming. Specifically, he wants to make information technology a platform for more experiences. One example he gave was beingness able to sit at habitation and sentry a courtside basketball game. Another example was a user having a i-on-one conversation with their dr..

Facebook Statistics 'Tour Businesses

By 2007, Facebook had more than 100,000 company pages, which immune businesses to display their information and attract potential customers. In the following decade, that number has grown astronomically; there are currently more threescore meg Facebook concern pages. These pages are an integral part of the Facebook ecosystem, non but because of ad dollars, just because users interact with them. Virtually 40% of people like or follow a Facebook folio in guild to receive special offers. It besides turns out that 32% of people regularly engage with Facebook pages, leaving more than than 5 billion comments on Facebook pages each month.

Facebook engagement
Facebook engagement (Image source: Ecommerce CEO)

Even before Facebook's new algorithm was implemented, the boilerplate Facebook post had an organic attain of two.half-dozen% of the total audition of a folio. At present, that number is definitely lower, making it even more than important for businesses to boost posts and set aside marketing dollars for Facebook promotion posts. Interestingly, pages with smaller followings tend to have college reach and engagement rates. Viral publishers, such every bit 9gag and BoredPanda, take been securely impacted past the change of Facebook'due south algorithm, seeing huge drops in engagement.

Facebook-influence declines
Facebook-influence declines (Image source: Digiday)

Any individual brand's engagement number, however, is dependant on how fluent they are with creating posts that resonate with their audience. Heavy use of promotional posts is likely to turn users off, with most 60% of users disliking too many promotional posts.

Annoying actions brands take on social media
Annoying actions brands have on social media (Image source: SocialMediaToday)

On average, brands post eight times a day, many of them taking advantage of studies detailing the best time to mail service, which in general concord that Thursdays and Fridays are the best days to put your most of import content online. In club to discover success for your brand, it's of import to dig into your own Insights for high-engagement days of the week and times of the mean solar day. Of course, with 40% of Facebook users non liking any brand page—the best way for businesses to become their content noticed is by taking advantage of Facebook Ads.

Advantage of Facebook Ads

The bulk of Facebook's income is derived from advertising revenue. Marketers spend billions of dollars each year to target customers based on users' profiles. With 93% of marketers regularly using Facebook advertising, the visitor earned $xi.eight billion from advertisement solitary in Q1 2018.

Facebook ad revenue
Facebook advertisement revenue (Image source: VentureBeat)

Facebook, which cashed out with nearly $40 billion in ad revenue in 2017, makes up twenty% of the $203 billion in the global advertizing market. Interestingly, virtually 70% of the 3 million businesses that apply Facebook Ads as office of their marketing campaigns are based outside the US. Once more, information technology'south the social media giant's focus on mobile that is driving its advertising revenue success, with 91% of Facebook'southward advert revenue coming from ads targeting mobile devices. One reason that Facebook Ads are so popular with so many marketers is that a larger budget does not necessarily equate to more exposure. This makes it particularly bonny to small- and medium-sized businesses. The boilerplate cost per click (CPC) for Facebook Ads is $1.72 beyond all industries, and the average clickthrough rate (CTR) is 0.9%. Though, at first glance, these numbers might non look amazing, information technology turns out that 26% of people that have clicked on Facebook ads have fabricated a purchase.

Facebook ads average cpc
Facebook ads average CPC

Information technology should be no surprise that people are more likely to click on ads that are related to their interests, and that'south where the Facebook relevance score comes in. The relevance score depends on engagement. A high relevance score means more date and that your advert costs less. For case, a relevance score of iii costs 73% more one with a score of eight. And, it has a 77% lower CTR score.

Facebook CPC CTR
Facebook CPC and CTR (Image source: AdEspresso)

Catering to the needs of businesses, Facebook has developed several types of ads. Ane of the most constructive forms is video. Still, Facebook research has establish that 47% of the value of Facebook video ads occurs in the offset three seconds of the video. This means that marketers wanting to have advantage of Facebook video ads need to become straight to the indicate. In other forms of advertisement, it comes downwardly to using the right image, which accounts for 75-90% of advertising effectivity.

Facebook Faces Issues Bigger than Profitability

Facebook, one of the biggest companies in the world, did not reach its 14th birthday unscathed. The company has faced more than its fair share of major social bug, from the broadcasting of personal information to false news.

Simulated News

Almost 45% of American adults get their news from Facebook, despite only 5% of Americans having "a lot" of trust in the news they get from the site. Americans trust the information they get from social media sites less than other sources. Virtually 37% of Americans trust social media news, while 85% trust information from local news organizations and 72% trust national news organizations. News coming from friends and family ranks betwixt national news and local news sources with 76% of people trusting them. In 2015, Facebook'south algorithm was programmed to omit misleading content. Users could also flag "fake or deceitful news." And so, in 2016, they announced plans to tackle the spread of faux information by developing new products, working with fact checkers, hitting back at websites with false stories, and launching the Facebook Journalism Projection. Nonetheless, the fallout from Russian trolls spreading fake news on Facebook to touch the 2016 US presidential ballot continues to undercut the trust Facebook users have in news discovered through the platform.

Facebook Privacy

Some other major business organization among many critics of Facebook and other tech giants focuses on users' information privacy. Facebook'southward nearly recent scandal revolves around Cambridge Analytica. The analytics house was investigated for allegedly collecting information from more than than 87 million people via Facebook. The information Cambridge Analytica took was supposedly used to influence the outcome of the 2016 ballot and even Brexit through "psychographic targeting".

Facebook Looks Alee

Despite being called up to evidence in front of Congress about Russian meddling in the presidential election, and Facebook needing to put out numerous other fires, the company continues to expect ahead, funding its own enquiry and development teams.

Facebook Lookout

Facebook Watch is a video-on-demand service rolled out outset to U.s.a. users virtually a year ago. It is now available to all Facebook users. Much along the same line as Amazon Originals, Facebook Watch hosts unique content on its channel. Partners produce the content, keeping 55% of the revenue — Facebook drags in 45%. Currently, Facebook is exploring how to brand their shows more interactive, which could take the course of virtual reality.

Virtual Reality

After the buy of Oculus VR in 2014, Zuckerberg announced his goal of getting 1 billion people into VR. That goal may presently become a reality, as Facebook launched Oculus Go, the company's standalone headset, in May 2018.

Facebook Oculus Go
Facebook Oculus Go (Image source: Recode)

Priced at $199, Oculus Get does not require a high-end smartphone to operate it.

Swipe Right for Facebook Dating

In May 2018, Facebook announced that it would be developing its own dating service—directly competing with the popular Tinder app. As of August, information technology is nevertheless in a testing stage. Currently, it's not being designed to be a divide app, but a characteristic within Facebook itself.

Facebook dating
Facebook dating (Image source: TechCrunch)

Workplace by Facebook

Workplace by Facebook is the company's foray into business collaboration tools. Information technology is completely split up from a users' personal Facebook business relationship and requires a piece of work email account to set it up. Initially announced in 2016, Facebook attempted to capitalize on users' familiarity of the platform and how easily it integrates with other commonly-used business apps and tools. The standard tier for the tool is only available past invite. Companies interested in getting a premium business relationship tin can start signing up without an invitation.

Other Random Facebook Statistics and Facts

If you lot were to venture a guess of what Zuckerberg makes a twelvemonth, it would be in the millions—the high millions, and yous probably wouldn't be wrong. However, if you guessed what his salary was, you wouldn't be close. Zuckerberg's bacon is a comical $ane a year. Though Zuckerberg's Facebook URL is https://www.facebook.com/zuck, information technology was originally www.facebook.com/four, because he is the fourth person to join the site. At present, his old URL just redirects to his new one. Despite the massive amount of traction Facebook has in the earth, it'south missing from ane of the largest online markets in the globe — Prc. In fact, Facebook is straight up banned in China. This is a shame for whatsoever Chinese who are fans of Cristiano Ronaldo, who is the most followed celebrity on the social media site with 122 million followers. Shakira takes the silver in this regard with 102 million followers.

Summary

The social media behemothic'southward booming relevance in the world, from its apprehensive ancestry as a rate-how-hot-this-person-is website, means its history is packed with interesting Facebook statistics that tin assistance you understand the visitor'southward trajectory.

Though Facebook has lost traction with teenagers, which could pose issues down the road for the company, marketers are still pouring billions into advert on the site because of its ability to target users based on demographics and interests.

No matter how you use Facebook, knowing the right Facebook statistics is going to help you get the well-nigh out of the social media platform. If Facebook is one of your fundamental social channels, make certain to read our list of the all-time WordPress Facebook plugins. Didn't see your favorite Facebook statistics or facts? Share them in the comment department below!


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