Everyone’s got an opinion about Facebook. Some people think it’s a fun way to keep up with friends and family. Others believe so deeply in its lasting cultural relevance they permanently ink their bodies in honor of it. Some businesses continue to invest more time and money into Facebook, while some choose to focus on other social networks.
Opinions are one thing, but when you’re evaluating the usefulness of Facebook for your business what you really need is data. We’re talking cold, hard stats—and there’s A LOT out there. Luckily, we’ve done the work for you. This list covers everything from Facebook user statistics to demographics, usage trends, and advertising insights. Enjoy!
Facebook user statistics
Facebook has more than a billion active users:
The platform has 1.71 billion monthly active users and 1.13 billion daily active users, on average.
Facebook boasts 1.57 billion mobile monthly active users and 1.03 million mobile daily active users, on average.
Facebook Lite, an app designed for the developing world’s slower internet connections, has 100 million monthly active users.
But it’s a small world after all:
Everyone on Facebook is connected to one another by an average of 3.57 degrees of separation.
Average friends per user:
The average Facebook user has 155 friends (but would only turn to four of them in a crisis).
Women have more Facebook friends on average than men: 166 compared to 145.
What these stats mean for your business
I’m accustomed to only using the word “billion” to convey a type of kidding-not-kidding hyperbole (i.e. “I want to eat a billion pizzas for lunch”) but in Facebook’s case, there is no exaggeration. They have over a billion daily active users. If Facebook was a country, it would be the most populated country on earth. So even though the way in which businesses (and customers) use Facebook will continue to evolve, it’s safe to say that the platform as a whole isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. Investing in building and sustaining a presence on Facebook should (still) be a top priority for your business.
Facebook demographics
People of every age use Facebook:
82 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds online in the U.S. use Facebook.
79 percent of 30 to 49-year-olds online in the U.S. use Facebook.
56 percent of U.S. online users ages 65 and up use Facebook.
It also spans generations—83 percent of parents with a teen between the ages of 13 and 17 are friends with their child on Facebook.
The gender split is fairly even:
According to self-reported information on Facebook from people aged 18 and older, 44 percent of users identify as women, while 56 percent identify as men.
Image via Facebook.The split between single and married users is pretty even too:
39 percent of Facebook users have self-reported as being married, while another 39 percent have self-reported as being single.
Image via Facebook.Education levels:
According to self-reported data, 62 percent of Facebook users have some form of university education, while 30 percent reported high school as being the highest level of education reached.
Image via Facebook.Facebook is massive outside North America:
Nearly 85 percent of Facebook’s daily active users are outside of the U.S and Canada.
According to self-reported data, India, Brazil, and Indonesia have the largest audiences on Facebook behind the U.S.
Image via Facebook.What these stats mean for your business
The phrase “know your audience” is integral to many things, including successful public speaking, non-catastrophic stand-up comedy, persuasive sales pitches, and effective social media marketing.
It’s important to continually analyze the demographics of Facebook users overall in comparison to your target audience. If you’ve built a community on the platform already, start digging into your Page Insights on a regular basis to get a better idea of who your Facebook audience is and what motivates them to engage with you.
Facebook usage statistics
Facebook is still dominating:
Facebook remains the most-used social media site among all ages, used by 64 percent of Americans 12 and up.
Facebook accounts for one in every six minutes spent online and one in every five minutes spent on mobile.
People spend more than 20 minutes a day on Facebook.
Users generate over 4 million likes per minute.
Video is a big, big deal:
The site tallies 8 billion average daily video views.
Facebook users rack up 100 million hours of daily video watch time.
In September 2015, 1.5 million small and medium businesses shared videos.
Silence is golden: 85 percent of videos on Facebook are watched without sound on.
Facebook Live is continuing to grow:
By June 2016, businesses were streaming six times the amount of live videos on their Facebook Pages than they were in January.
Only < 30 percent of the Pages that live stream video most frequently are in English.
Facebook is a news source:
66 percent of Facebook users consume news on the platform.
88 percent of millennials get news from Facebook.
New parents are power users:
In America, new moms post 2.5 times more status updates, 3.5 times more photos, and 4.2 times more videos than non-parents.
New parents use Facebook mobile 1.3 times more often than users without children.
The lifespan of a Facebook post:
A Facebook post reaches a whopping 75 percent of its potential engagement in the first five hours. However, the peak of the impressions your post receives happens much sooner than the actual engagement. In fact, your post will have made 75 percent of its lifetime impressions after just two and a half hours.
The best time to post on Facebook:
The best time to post on Facebook will vary from business to business, but many sources cite Thursdays and Fridays from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. as being particularly effective times to gain attention and engagement.
What these stats mean for your business
While there’s no magic formula for guaranteed success on Facebook (bummer), paying attention to the ever-changing trends in how people are using it can ensure your business is taking full advantage of it.
Always stay focused on what your audience uses Facebook for—whether it’s getting news updates or posting photos of their newborn—because it may not align with what you assume it should be used for. Staying in tune with these behaviors will help you create social marketing campaigns that are more effective and widely embraced by your audience on Facebook.
Brands and business on Facebook
More than 50 million businesses use Facebook Pages.
Every month, Facebook users leave 2.5 billion comments on Facebook Pages.
Nearly one-third of Facebook users (32 percent) engage with brands regularly.
42 percent of customer service responses from brands on Facebook happen within the first 60 minutes.
What these stats mean for your business
Facebook presents a huge opportunity to provide fast, direct, and personal customer service. People will continue to expect faster and faster responses to their comments, which means any unanswered questions or complaints left on your Facebook Page can turn into ticking time bombs for your brand.
Facebook Ads statistics
There are over 3 million companies that regularly use Facebook to market their business.
70 percent of those companies are outside of the U.S.
Facebook earned 19 percent of the $70 billion spent worldwide on mobile advertising in 2015.
Effectiveness of Facebook Ads:
Images are responsible for 75 to 90 percent of an ad’s performance on Facebook.
According to one study, the average click-through rate of a Facebook ad is 0.9 percent and the average cost-per-click is $0.64. (Note: These numbers should be taken with a grain of salt. The performance of your Facebook Ads will depend on a variety of factors including your industry, total budget, type of ad campaign, target audience, and the length of time your ad is active.)
Since so many Facebook users watch video without the sound on, captioned video ads can increase video view time by an average of 12 percent.
The most effective length for an ad title on Facebook is four words, and 15 words for a link description.
What these stats mean for your business
Choose your visuals wisely. They play a huge role in the success of Facebook Ads, so don’t skimp out on your photography or design budget. It’s also important to tailor your ads (and your posts in general) to user behavior on Facebook. If most users watch content on Facebook without the sound on, don’t use voiceovers to convey the most important messages in your video ads. For a complete guide to running effective Facebook Ads, check out this post.
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