Facebook Reaches 1 Billion Active Users

[engine]

That's quite a milestone. Is it also a marketing person's dream?

This morning, there are more than one billion people using Facebook actively each month.

Facebook Reaches 1 Billion Active Users [newsroom.fb.com]

[SevenCubed]

They fell again, today 05.10.2012 $20.91 -$1.04

That's bird seed compared to what's potentially in store for facebook shares over the next few quarters. Facebook has been dependent on 12% of their revenue from Zynga. And Zynga today put out a warning to the investment community to expect lower revenue for the coming quarter as well as revising it downward for the next year. Zynga took a blood-bath earlier today and shed 19% common share value before recovering to about -12%. They are nearing the penny-stock threshold. I don't know what regulations are for the NASDAQ these days. It used to be for example that if a stock listed on the TSE dropped into penny-stock status it got delisted. Then it's only recourse was the VSE which is more of a speculative venue where a company can loose it's credibility.

Facebook is in panic mode, just read the story on Seeking Alpha about "Facebook Flings Spaghetti As Lock-Up Expirations Approach".

[Leosghost]

The thing with those ( way less than 1 Billion ) people who are on facebook 24/7..is that they are obviously not at school, nor working..( nothing else to do all day long )..makes them lousy prospects to advertise anything that requires money to buy..because people with no jobs have no spare money..and those who are working, ignore the ads..and everyone who does use it says that what would improve it..would be no ads at all..and more freebies..and less brands that don't have lots of freebies..

Maybe GM are onto something when they pulled their 10 million spend from there :)..of course if you are selling breakfast cereals and soda..then paying just to get your name on there, is maybe a reason..or maybe it is just because, everyone selling those things, thinks that everyone else selling those things, is on there too..

Kind'a like playing chicken with ad money..and none of them dare look at the ROI..if they did, they'd be jumping out of windows..or their bosses would be pushing them out..

Mark must think that his IPO investors are as dumb as he thinks his users are..

He apparently is correct on both counts..

[Digmen1]

I still find the bids for ads are quite high.
Loosing one company GM is not the end of the world.
There are thousands other others.

The ROI for most ads, Google, Facebook and Banner etc is far too low for most businesses.

So we are going to need lots of high rise windows....

[Leosghost]

I still find the bids for ads are quite high.

Mark and his backers have expenses..

There are thousands other others.

Mark is counting on it..as my Mum used to say ..there is one born every minute..and as the carnies say "wherever there is a crowd, there are marks, it's a shame to waste them and let someone else take their money"..Mr Z would have made a good "barker" ..

The ROI for most ads on Facebook is far too low for most businesses...

there ya go..fixed it for you :)

[Clarence]

If it's as accurate as you claim then you must have insider information that the public doesn't have access to?

I Do.

[Leosghost]

If it's as accurate as you claim then you must have insider information that the public doesn't have access to?

I Do.

But you don't have a globe ? with all those other countries and areas on it that I mentioned..and which you forgot when fantasising about the number of accounts on facebook..

So..we have allegations in the media of "insider trading" and pre IPO hyping of expectations, revenue and user figures..and assertions in fora of "insider information"..

Maybe Groupon ( that other paragon of accurate figures, users and accounting ), will give us a 60% off deal on the real story..or even 70% off on "insider information"..:)

[edited by: Leosghost at 12:53 am (utc) on Oct 6, 2012]

[Digmen1]

It does not really matter how many users they have.

As long as they are bona fide users, not children under 13 and not pets etc.

What does matter is that a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook. And it is growing.

[Leosghost]

What does matter is that a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook. And it is growing.

You keep asserting this with no proof of it other than the PR figures from facebook..and anecdotal "I see lots of young people around me using it"..inspite of the fact that others don't ..and that all they see is mainly 24/7 use by unemployed people with nothing else to do ..or children ..

Reminds me of CB radio on the late 70s and early 80s in the UK ..same user demographic ..most of them talking via electronics to someone two houses away from them in real life..and feeling geekily social about it ..

I made a great deal of money in those times from selling AM and sideband radios and later FM CB sets to people in the UK who wanted to pretend to be USA truck drivers ..or Chuck Norris or whatever was going on in their heads..and who thought with a 40 channel CB and saying ten four..that they were radio hams..

Many on facebook talk about "my website on facebook"..most are exactly what Mark thinks they are ..and they don't convert..

You cant make up for lousy ROI or even losses, by increasing quantity..especially when the user figures are fantasy..

[Leosghost]

What does matter is that a lot of people spend a lot of time on Facebook.

A lot of people spend a lot of time each day in the crapper ..unless you are selling toilet paper..they are not a good demographic..they have other things on their minds..and they don't want to be disturbed..they too are not there to look at the ads..most don't read, or they try to ignore, what is written on the walls:)

[viral]

@Leosghost

you sound like someone who tried FB advertising and got burnt and yeah there are plenty of people like that. However if you know what you are doing it can be the best ROI on the web.

For example one of my ads I pay per click but my call to action does not require the user to actually click on the ad. Some people still do but most just pick up their phone and do what the ad asks them to do.

There you go LEo mull over that one!

[Leosghost]

You sound like someone who tried FB advertising and got burnt

No never used it..

and yeah there are plenty of people like that.

yep ..I know and talk to a lot of them ..read what the big ones, and their agencies say about it too..talk to a lot of their agencies privately..

However if you know what you are doing it can be the best ROI on the web.

Sure depends on what you are advertising, but over all it's ROI is crap compared with other venues for adspend..and it's methods are waaay more obscure..and it's figures pure fantasy..

There you go LEo mull over that one!

been in advertising ( including some of the very biggest agencies and clients ) since the mid 70s ..you see platforms come ..you see them go..you hear the hype..and you watch the marks get their money taken..

When facebook finally falls over, it will be all by itself one of the largest write offs in history from one outfit ..if not the largest..already it has lost more than Enron etc ever did..many people that should be wearing Orange jumpsuits are not , because everyone that could look closely , is looking the other way and praying that they can get out from under before the house of cards falls on them too..

Bernie M terrified them when they saw one of their own do the perp walk..so they are now all averting their eys and trying to divest..

By end of October, the crap will really begin to hit the fan..

But it is fantasy VC money ..which will be reimbursed to the banks and the brokers out of the little peoples taxes..just like the banks were after 2008..

facebook could have been an interesting platform..all that data..I said so at the time that the Russian were buying in..but..then wall street and particularly GS got involved pre IPO..and ..as usual.. too many crooks spoilt the broth..

[edited by: Leosghost at 2:03 am (utc) on Oct 6, 2012]

[kemcar]

I don't think this 1 million user claim is fake and just promotion. It may be possible, when you think about FB's advertising part, there are many who started to use it as it was in their budget. So I don't think it's a rumor.

[Leosghost]

I don't think this 1 million user claim is fake and just promotion. It may be possible, when you think about FB's advertising part, there are many who started to use it as it was in their budget. So I don't think it's a rumor.

^^^that does not parse..

[SevenCubed]

That's bot talk, or else an aspiring politician.

[lucy24]

No, it's a Freudian typo.

I don't think this 1 million user claim is fake and just promotion.

[affshow]

Personally, fb is popular, we can't deny, and it does really make sense that the data is true or not?

[londrum]

there's a lot of sites these days that let you login via facebook and twitter. Pinterest and AddThis are two that i regularly come across. Presumably everyone who uses those at least once a month will also be logged by facebook as a user, regardless of whether they actually visited facebook.

[jecasc]

I spend advertising revenue on both Google and Facebook. At first Google was a lot better but once you understand how Facebook ads work and how you need to structure them. I now spend a lot more at Facebook than google.I like that people like you don't spend money at Facebook. Means it is cheaper for me.

Maybe you are right - good for you, nevertheless bad for Facebook. That is exactly my point. With Google Adwords I did not have to "understand how they worked". I immediately realized that they would gernerate immediate revenue for my business. Maybe you can even generate sales with facebook ads - but it seems "you have to figure something out" and as long as it stays like that Facebook will only make a fraction of the money Google does.

[jecasc]

Google is only a search engine and there are others.
Facebook provides a service that people want.

On Google I can convince a hungry guy to buy a pizza when he is actively searching for something to eat. On Facebook I have to convince the guy he is hungry first before I can sell the pizza.

People on Google are actively searching for a place to go - Google is not their destination. - exactly because it is only a search engine. If I can convince them with my ad that I am the place to go I can make money and pay Google for it.

Facebook is already the destination. Facebook is the place where people wanted to go and want to stay for the time being. An ad is much less effective here.

That's why Google users are - and will stay for a long time much more valuable for advertisers - even if Facebook has 3 Billion active users.

[hal12b]

Facebook's future is bad. With a current market cap of about 43 billion, it should be generating 2-3x the cash to sustain itself. OR the stock should be trading at 50-75% less. The market will correct itself. It is just the speculators that are continually pushing it up. Employees will start leaving. It is no longer "cool" to work for Facebook. It's shaping up to another .com bust. Once employees start leaving, the ship will sink. It's over.

[webindia123]

--- Not Impressed ---
People who love online/offline display ads, ATL and BTL; burning huge budgets in name of BRANDING(!?) might actually like that ineffective 1 billion FB users.

What FB has done with online platform is slowly diminish thin line between ROI driven campaigns and big budget promotions going dud. So likes of Google still has great future ahead because they still value ROI driven campaigns.

Measurement is the key controller in online media campaigns; which has also seen its rise so whats the use of so many users if the Facebook ad platform is unable to justify campaign budgets- for most of the promotions ran on it.

- lalit kumar

[anallawalla]

Clarence,

Speaking about India's 1B population, the IAMAI is one of the leading Internet bodies there and it is quoted in a leading newspaper [articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com...] that India will reach 150 million "claimed users" at the end of this year. Those have used the Internet once in their lifetime. The number who use it at least once a month is smaller.

[anallawalla]

there's a lot of sites these days that let you login via facebook and twitter. Pinterest and AddThis are two that i regularly come across.

And some can only be accessed using FB or Twitter. So yes, that's another layer of miscounted users.

[Digmen1]

I often log into to mainstream news sites using Facebook.
But how does that make me a miscounted user ?
I have a Facebook account and I access my Facebook pages once or twice a week.

It just shows that the news sites trust Facebook!

[James Donovan]

Yes, I agree its just like a dream to achieve this stage.

[furshka]

I no longer feel the need to login to Facebook everyday but I don't have plans to delete my account anytime soon. Yes, sharing may have slowed down in my network but people seem to continue to login to Facebook.

[viral]

The funny thing is internet marketers are constantly talking about mailing lists and how wonderful they are but if you get a 1% open rate in a mailing list your are ecstatic!

My FB pages operate like mailing lists but I regularly get 70%+ interaction!

Yet all I can hear from those self same marketers who love their email lists to death is how bad FB is. Once again it boils down to how you use FB. The marketing potential of FB is awesome yet it is a learning curve. Most traditional marketers don't have a clue as to how to go about it.

I personally do all of the above, I work Google, I work my mailing lists and I work FB. to a lesser extent I work reddit and pinterest.. Anyone who isn't doing all these things is selling themselves short.

I think part of the problem is that all social media requires a different mindset. If you don't take action on entering that market you are probably going to be left behind.

For a good read about how social works, read the story about the guy who started buzzfeed. It will give you some ideas on how all this can work for you.

Is FB on it's way to being dead like Leo seems to think? I don't think so. Will it be a different beast in 5 years time? for sure! it has to be!

[brotherhood of LAN]

>Will it be a different beast in 5 years time?

Perhaps, but the concept of people's social lives is definitely here to stay, which may be on FB or not. Crucially, the userbase is already there.

And thanks for sharing that you're doing well marketing to your customers on there, there's been a number of people on these forums who've reported the same.

[np2003]

I thought "active" meant people visiting other sites? If you have a Facebook like button on your website and 100 users "visited" it, that would be counted as 100 active users as FB actively tracks anywhere you go with FB cookies.

If that is indeed true, then Google Analytics is the most visited site in the world, since every website out there has it installed.

[Digmen1]

So will the next Facebook milestone be 900 million or 1.1 billion ?

I think they are trying to tidy up their users etc.
I vote for 1.1