Contributor: Stephen Fells
The current estimated world population is about 6.8 billion people. Yesterday Facebook took another step toward connecting all of them with it’s announcement that it now has 250 million users.
If we look at the most populous countries and squeeze Facebook onto the list it fits between the U.S. (306 million) and Indonesia (230 million). Today there are more Facebook users than Brazilians, Russians, Japanese or Mexicans. We will soon see more people using Facebook than the combined populations of Germany, France, Italy and the United Kingdom.
Another stat: that’s 50 million more than three months ago.
The growth of Facebook is amazing and shows no sign of slowing. Common sense dictates it can’t carry on at this rate but when will it stop? Perhaps at 6.8 billion users. That certainly seems to be their goal. Facebook founder and public ‘face’ (sorry…) Mark Zuckerberg states:
“For us, growing to 250 million users isn’t just an impressive number; it is a mark of how many personal connections all of you have made, and how far we at Facebook have to go to extend the power of connection to the billions of people around the world.”
I’ve met more Facebook naysayers in the last month than during the last 12 months combined. “I don’t get it” is the normal complaint. This tells me one thing: Facebook has more growth potential.
Here’s something for the social pessimists. The following chart from The Business Insider shows that user engagement on Facebook surpasses everyone.
They add “Facebook members don’t visit the site; they live on it.”
Need more evidence? From allfacebook.com:
And then there’s a recent Nielsen report.
There’s also a recent Anderson Analytics study that discovered 71% of those surveyed said they couldn’t live without Facebook.
If you still think Facebook is a fad I’ll leave you with my thoughts on matter:
“ALL technology is a fad; it’s only the length of the fad that changes. The question is how to leverage those ‘fads’ that benefit your business. And there’s no better time than NOW!“
