Facebook is huge. Depending on the day, it is the most visited site in the US (an accomplishment that Facebook recently achieved for the first time during Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and New Years’ Day at the end of 2009). Yet despite all the Facebook success and its integration into mainstream culture, there are still some misunderstandings about the people that use facebook.

Just yesterday I was having a conversation with someone about Facebook in which a comment was made that “kids and younger people are the ones that really use Facebook”. It wasn’t the first time I’ve heard this perspective come up in conversation. When it does, I do my best to dispel the myth with the most recent demographics statistics and trends. Often times I’m asked to share that information afterwards. So,  I’m writing this post to help avoid the need to explain myself over and over again, and instead direct people here. With that all out of the way, here is the most recent data (as of 1/1/10) on Facebook that you can use to enlighten yourself and others on just who uses Facebook and where they come from.

1) Facebook.com average user figures:

• Average user has 130 friends on the site
• Average user sends 8 friend requests per month
• Average user spends more than 55 minutes per day on Facebook
• Average user clicks the Like button on 9 pieces of content each month
• Average user writes 25 comments on Facebook content each month
• Average user becomes a fan of 2 Pages each month
• Average user is invited to 3 events per month
• Average user is a member of 12 groups

Source: facebook.com statistics

2) Breakdown by country: Just over 70% of Facebook users come from outside the United States

Sources: checkfacebook.com and facebook.com statistics

3) Breakdown by population saturation: The % of country population that are active on Facebook

Sources: allfacebook.com

4) Breakdown of US users (gender and age):

As the chart above illustrates, the total US Facebook population is made up of millions of people across a range of ages groups. While young adults (18-25) lead the way with a combined ~27 million users, the 26-34 group is close behind with ~21 million users. According to the data above there a combined ~18 million people over the age of 45 active on Facebook. These are impressive user numbers from an older demographic that continue to grow.

Another look at the US users by age:

Sources: allfacebook.com

5) Facebook.com a top destination site for everyone, particularly the 65+ age group

Source: Nielsen 2010 Media Fact Sheet

I’ve aggregated data from several different sources for this post, and as you can see there is considerable participation on Facebook from all age groups. Hopefully you can use this information going forward to dispel the youth myth too.

Spend some time outside of social media communities and you’ll realize there are many people who either don’t agree, don’t understand or haven’t yet taken the time to learn about social media (what it is, what it isn’t and the ways it has changed how we communicate). I was reminded of that today when I came across an article criticizing the idea of letting company employees publicly respond to consumers via social media outlets. The author make it clear he sees no business value in social media efforts, and reiterates that all outbound company communications should continue to be handled via internal corporate communications teams. The article generated some great discussion in the comments, but the best response might have been from Scott Monty who reminded us that with any new game changing technology, there are companies that fear and wish to avoid it.

“A friend sent me a PDF of an article from a business journal in which a company expressed reservations about this new technology over which everyone seemed to be abuzz. They decided that they would restrict employees’ use of it, because of the fear of corporate secrets getting out, of insider information making its way to Wall Street, and of employees wasting their time on it. For that reason, they set up the hardware on a single station in the middle of everyone’s desks so that everyone could see how people were using it.

“That PDF was an article from a 1930s business journal and the technology was the telephone.”

If employee social media participation shouldn’t be allowed because it is too risky, then should you also take away their telephone and email access? Clearly not. Give social media a chance first.

FACTS:

Social media interest and participation continues to climb at an incredible rate. Don’t buy into that statement? Read on. The chart below demonstrates the interest (based on search activity) of social media, direct marketing, digital marketing and digital advertising in the United States. Remember, these are not opinions but rather actual google users telling us what they are interesting in via their searches. As the chart shows, direct marketing has been suffering a steady decline, while digital marketing and advertising have a slow and steady increase. Social media however, has a meteoric rise, with no signs of slowing down. Ignoring this fact because you personally believe it is wrong isn’t advisable. The rest of the world is moving ahead. Don’t get left behind due to ignorance.

Take the time to understand social media (the tools, culture and practices) and participate in it first before you throw the baby out with the bathwater. Who knows, just like Sam-I-Am, you may find that you like green eggs and ham!

The cat was let out of the bag today regarding Jeremiah Owyang’s next career move. He’s reuniting with former Forrester colleague Charlene Li and joining her new venture, The Altimeter Group. I wouldn’t argue against what a formidable collection of talent, expertise and passion now exists at this young company. Several prominent folks like Todd Defren, Brian Solis, and Jeremy Pepper have already shared their opinions on what a powerhouse combination of talent this is. The blogosphere doesn’t need another breaking news post, so I’ll refrain from a redundant recap. That said, I wish Jeremiah the best and send him a sincere congratulations on this move.

What interests me much more about this news is that we’re FINALLY starting to see folks involved in the social media space put the focus where it ought to be, on harnessing new strategies and tools to provide more business value, PERIOD. Strip all the social media hype down to the bare minimum and that is all that really matters for business leaders. Social technologies have been a great thing for individuals, ushering in changes that we still haven’t seen the end of. However, what they haven’t done en mass yet is brought the financial and/or business value benefits that they need to, in order for companies to run like mad and adopt them.

Why not? Because new media and technology developments are moving at light speed, and most (not all, there are positive and credible examples out there) companies don’t have the capability to assess these changes, analyze their pros/cons, and then put together a roadmap for how to adopt and execute with them in a way that is 100% aligned with business objectives and goals. To date, most of the social media for business is about enagement and activity. Is this a good thing? Yes. No. Maybe, but that answer will be different for each company you ask. I think the real “magic” moment for social media is yet to come. People like Jeremiah, Charlene and others realize this, and see the true opportunities for new media & technologies. They want to legitimize the space to businesses. The way to do that is by speaking a language and vocabulary that the business world understands. Not by talking “tweets”, “plurks” and “likes”. Those are internal nuances of the social media black box. Business leaders don’t need, nor want, to get sucked into that conversation. They NEED to know how to integrate social into their business plans, strategies and cultures, in a way that will better their products or services to drive revenue and increase customer satisfaction (think Social Business Design like David Armano from Dachis Corp., not tactical social media).

If it feels like social media needs to grow up and mature, it’s because it does. The folks at Altimeter certainly are not the only ones doing it, but part of the vanguard attempting to change social media from a pimply, awkward teenager into a responsible, polished young adult.

Quick explanation for those not familiar with Facebook Connect. It is a service developed by Facebook that lets Facebook users login into partner sites using their Facebook account and share information with Facebook friends. Basically, a single sign-on authentication solution that websites can use instead of relying on building it for themselves.

Facebook Connect – Current State of the Union

As of this writing, there are more than 15,000 registered implementations (websites, devices and applications) of Facebook Connect since its general availability in December 2008. According to Nick O’Neil from Allfacebook.com, the most recent statistics show that Facebook Connect is close to 1 million users. Impressive numbers given this initiative isn’t even a year old yet. Implementing this can be trivial, and offers immediate benefits to companies willing to experiment. Already we’re seeing these benefits on Connect enabled sites:

Increased Registration - Data from Facebook states that sites that use Facebook Conect as an alternate to account registration have seen a 30-300% increase in registration on their sites.

• Citysearch.com – Daily site registrations have tripled in the 4 months since Facebook Connect testing began
• Huffingtonpost.com – Since integrating with Facebook Connect, more than 33% of their new commentor registrations come through Facebook
• Cbsinsider.com – Over 85% of all new user registrations are coming from Facebook Connect

Increased Site Traffic - After implementation, Facebook.com immediately begins sending web site traffic your way. Data from Facebook says that for each story published in Facebook, companies see roughly 3 clicks back to the site.  Nearly half the stories in the News Stream get clicked on. This creates opportunities for the site to encourage more user actions – knowing that each one may result in 3 new visits to their site.

• Lollapalooza.com – Pageviews are up 99 percent, page views per visit are up 34 percent, and the average time on the site is up 20 percent since Facebook Connect implementation
• Surfline.com – July referrals increased 57%, and 38% over the 2009 monthly average (Facebook Connect wasn’t even implemented until July 27th – The means they saw the benefits from just 4 days worth of traffic, not the entire month). August is already off to a great start, with trending at an 83% increase month-over-month, and 148% over the 2009 average

Increased Engagement – Facebook users are used to being social. They are an active group, participating, sharing, and generating more content. Sites with Facebook Connect see a 15-100% increase in reviews. Connected users create 15-60% more content than users who have not connected with Facebook Connect.

• Urbanspoon -  43,000 new users have connected using Facebook Connect. Those users have voted 150,000 times on restaurants , left 22,000 reviews, and uploaded 13,000 photos
• CitySearch - 94% of users who write reviews on the site share those reviews back on Facebook, where 70% of their friends who see the review click on it, and travel back to Citysearch.com

Improved User Experience - Facebook Connect offers users qualitative benefits too. No new site registration is required, simply login using your Facebook credentials. It also makes it easy to share with an existing network of friends or family by publishing activities to the Facebook Newsfeed, with only a couple clicks of the mouse. No typing or emailing required. Given the sheer size of Facebook’s active user base, this type of integration with an individual’s personal network could ultimately become the new “email a friend” feature found on websites worldwide.

Access to 250 million Online Consumers – At the end of the day, companies need to fish where the fish are. And right now, the fish are spending their time on Facebook.com (5 billion minutes a day globally). Opening up a direct pathway from your site to Facebook gives you access, albeit indirectly through your user’s activities, to an entirely new set of people. And for practically no out of pocket cost.

Bonus Round:

Facebook Connect Innovation – Companies that are willing to take on some additional time and effort for more advanced implementations of Facebook Connect are moving beyond the basic benefits above. Sites like the HuffingtonPost are innovating and creating new uses, like HuffPost Social News. This initiative goes beyond allowing users to login using Facebook, and instead mashes up HuffPost news content with the conversation surrounding it, attempting to create a digital water cooler like environment and feel. The intent and prevailing logic is that it will increase engagement and social participation. Based on the results from the other examples above, HuffPost stands a good chance at doing just that.

Increase Revenue – Some e-Retailers have taken notice of Facebook Connect and are beginning to formulate plans for implementing it, while other more progressive companies already have it live (retailers like Jansport and Teavana). According to a report from the WSJ, Jay Allen, Teavana’s vice president of e-commerce, says the conversion rate—a measure of how many shoppers make purchases—for people who use the application is 20% higher than the rate for others, and their average orders are slightly more expensive. Other e-Retailers that have announced plans to integrate with Facebook Connect are Dicks Sporting Goods, Drugstore.com and eMusic.com.

Key Takeaway: Facebook Connect offers immediate benefits to both website visitors and the companies that operate them. Tapping into existing social behavior is the next logical step to brand website & social media integration. Companies should take advantage of the benefits Facebook offers, as they are also immediate (see Surfline example above) and substantial.

Resources: Allfacebook.com has a good directory of some Facebook Connect installations. The most recent and up to date data, news, and examples can be found on the official Facebook Connect News page.

And if you want watch it in action before trying it yourself, check out the Video Overview of Facebook Connect courtesy of Powered Inc.