We all know Facebook is King with regard to visits and time a user spends on the site daily. But, what does an average day look like? This really cool infographic shows some interesting Facebook facts:
What I found most interesting in this infographic, especially as it relates to marketers, include:
* The average user’s age has increased: if you look at the average user age comparing 2010 to 2011, you’ll see that it increased by five years. As Facebook becomes more of a social network for adults versus teens, and as more seniors are joining Facebook, you can expect to see the average age increase in the next year, possibly two, before it starts to even out. This is good to keep in mind when thinking about Facebook from a business standpoint.
* Who are your friends? I’d be very curious to know what the “uncategorized” section really means. If user’s don’t fall into one of the other categories, does that mean they are business or celebrity pages they are connected to? Or, does this chart not take into consideration pages users like? If it’s strictly connections with other personal profiles, I think it’s interesting that connections from high school has the highest percentage following the uncategorized piece of the pie. Facebook is one place you can stay connected to your current relationships while keeping tabs on the past. I know I get a kick of finding people from high school, and elementary school even, to see what they’re doing now, even though I may not engage with them much, if at all.
People like to create a sense of their history on Facebook – you can think of it is almost as a representation of your life: who you know now, who you’ve been connected to in the past, etc. That doesn’t stop with people – while current research shows that Facebook users only like an average of 9 company pages, I expect this to increase as users are keen on showing the world who they are through social connections.
* Types of engagement: it’s no surprise that liking content, commenting on statues, and sharing content are the activities people do most on Facebook, with private messages showing lower percentages overall. This is where social media monitoring comes into play, as does its importance; people are public, they are out there. Based on this infographic and other data, people are not shy when it comes to posting content online. This is creating a wealth of information for marketers and business owners – I think this trend of social transparency is only going to become greater in the coming years. Yes, there will be a lot of regulations and privacy issues that come into play, but I honestly think that as people become more open, privacy will not be as damaging to social media research as people are saying it will.
There will be several shifts in this infographic over time; it will be interesting to watch the dynamics of Facebook, especially since it has recently gone public. How will users continue to make Facebook the most popular social network out there? What changes will Facebook make to facilitate this and keep it a vibrant, exciting networking site that keeps users engaged on a daily basis?