Seriously, You Can't Blame Facebook!

Ok guys. I am really tired of all the stories popping up these past couple of days trying to dog poor Facebook because of our inability to prove the value of this vast platform from a marketing perspective. Yes, maybe Facebook needs to add a consulting arm to help marketers maximize the benefits of what they have to offer like Google does for paid search (and I am sure they will in due time), but that doesn't mean we can blame them for our lack of marketing strategy.

Let's get real. Facebook is a new platform for most marketers. Many are still trying to figure out how it fits into their existing marketing strategy, and many are not doing a great job at it. Many still think Facebook marketing is a job for interns or a part-time gig for the programmer.

Here is the lowdown: Facebook is not a channel. It is a medium. The primary goal of any company should be to use it to aide the brands efforts in increasing brand awareness, highlighting and supporting programming, enhancing advertising, etc. This must be done in such a way as to build the brands fan base and extend reach as far as possible. Once built, the brand can promote special deals, contests, etc. within this community that are aimed at exciting that base and keeping them wanting more. But you cannot do the latter alone.

Your Facebook efforts must also be coordinated with existing marketing programs. For a company to think utilizing Facebook is about having a part-time employee post things like "I Love Chevy" on any given day or add a picture of a Vintage Camaro is missing the point. And missing a great opportunity.

When deciding to create a Facebook page, there are questions that must be addressed or your efforts will fail. These must be kept in mind at all times:

1. Why would someone like my brand, what is in it for them?
2. Why would someone continue to be a fan down the road, why would they stay a fan? 
3. What can I do to turn a fan into an advocate? 

Facebook is a platform that you use to wrap around all your other marketing efforts to help enhance their success. If done correctly, you can create a community that will thrive and will begin to take care of itself, much like Sephora (with corporate assistance of course).

Regarding advertising on Facebook: Someone released a study today of all days saying 44% of people would never click on a Facebook ad  ( www.emarketingandcommerce.com ).  Please realize that I can cite another study from 2009 based on real, not surveyed data that says 84% of people would never click on a Google banner ad (www.econsultancy.com ).

Yes, the click-through rates for Facebook ads are about half that of Google. But when you think about how precisely a company can target its Google ads, that is actually not too bad. You may have to test a bit harder to get your desired results on Facebook. So what.  Think of the potential!  A good marketer is not afraid of that.  Also, do not forget exposure is a good thing. Studies abound that show the benefits of brand exposure, and now tools are becoming available which will will allow us to properly assess the true social value:

• Comscore Social Essentials (http://www.comscore.com/Press_Events/Press_Releases/2011/7/comScore_Social_Essentials)
• Google and Sitecatalyst Social Attribution (http://mashable.com/2012/03/28/google-adobe-social-media/) 

I cannot image you do not agree with me on this.

Perry

GM and Ford - Do Either Really Know How to Take Advantage of the Facebook Platform?

Yesterday was certainly interesting day to be a digital marketer!


When I woke up yesterday and checked the news, I saw the piece about GM pulling their Facebook Ads whereas Ford was, as Ad Age said, "Stepping on the Gas."  When I first saw it, I didn't think too much about it. Many brands do not understand that advertising on Facebook requires a new set of rules and that it operates in a different part of the marketing funnel.  This is just not a problem within GM. It is a broader issue that affects many companies.

 As the day wore on, however, more and more of my contacts were asking me personally what I thought. I saw that the news media was putting more and more attention on this decision and curiously timed announcement by GM.

I myself wanted to understand the motivation behind this decision a bit better, so I researched GM's agency of record to see if any insights could be gained from the team that was supporting their social activity. From an Adweek article dated December 20, 2011, I found out that GM cut their Social Media agency, Big Fuel (http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/big-fuel-cut-gms-social-aor-137213).  Coincidentally, this occurred as the Publicis Groupe had just acquired a 51% stake in the agency.  Both Publicis and Big Fuel had GM as a client.  Was the release of Big Fuel a sign that the company did not understand Social Media? Was it a sign that it was disenchanted with Facebook at that time?  Was it perhaps a money saving tactic?  Apparently as of this date or shortly thereafter, the social media functions were reassigned. Big Fuel has other Fortune 100 clients who are satisfied.



Just as interesting as GM saying yesterday that they were pulling their advertising dollars from Facebook was that Ford said they would be upping their investment and have been quite happy with results to date on Facebook.  This obviously begs a comparison between the two organizations and how they are using their presence in Facebook to engage with consumers.

I  took a look at the Ford and the GM Facebook pages.  I noted the "Likes" and the "Talking about" metrics, as well as their treatment of their Facebook page cover photo.  Here is what I found:

Page	Cover Page Photo	Likes	Talking about	Percent Talking
Chevrolet	Montage many nostalgia pictures included	1.216 Million	20,000	1.64%
Chevy Camaro	Camaro Wheel	2.849 Million	30,000	1.05%
Ford Motor Company	Dearborn, MI headquarters	1.503 Million	27,000	1.80%
Ford Mustang	Car shot with a man	4.048 Million	54,600	1.35%

Cars have traditionally been marketed in a way that is supposed to raise your blood pressure and get your heart pounding.  I felt this immediately when I saw the picture of the Mustang in the Facebook Mustang page cover photo -- I had to have that car.
 

 Ford Mustang Facebook Page

By comparison, the Chevy Camaro Facebook page cover photo puzzled me, and I was left wondering what was their intention in showing me a picture of a wheel. The Chevrolet Facebook page, in particular, seems to have more appeal for those interested in car restoration.

Chevy Camaro Facebook Page

So, what is going on here? Clearly a case could be made that for both Ford and GM, there is room to do more with Facebook. However, there is a larger failure on the part of GM to construct a cohesive brand strategy with Facebook. In engaging with consumers, they have given up leadership of the dialogue on their Chevrolet page. I formed this opinion when I observed on their Facebook page that the content on the Chevrolet Facebook page is largely supplied by consumers who want to share their nostalgic photos of restored or well preserved old Chevys. That is very nice indeed, and it serves a purpose to maintain brand loyalty and support current owners, but it does not sell new cars.        

To continue the comparison between Ford and GM, I moved from Facebook to their websites.  GM is very Flash heavy, and, as a point of fact, the pages cannot load in an iOS mobile device.

 GM Website on Mobile device (flash not loading)

I wonder, did the executives of GM in their very busy lives, not become aware of how Americans are using mobile devices more and more, and that their website is essentially not consumable by individuals who have a mobile device?  This is more than a little lapse. Since half of all phones sold now are smart phones, all of the individuals who have smart phones will not be able to consume the site while surfing with their phone...ok you see where I am going.  Ford on the other hand loads perfectly on my iPad.

 Ford Website on Mobile device

To build on the point of the websites and message integration, one tactic I have observed from GM is their mobile ad campaign.  I have found that on my Android device I have been served flash-based ads for Chevrolet.  The mobile ads are thematically similar to those run on TV with the cast of characters at the dealership. (Reminds me of "Office" at a car dealership).  These commercials and the characters represented in them could be leveraged to engage with consumers in social media. (It would not be possible to serve the ads on an iOS device because they utilize flash.)

Ford similarly has spokesperson, Mike Rowe of America's Dirtiest Jobs fame.  Mike is always authentic in the commercials and adding him to the social media posts might add another dimension for consumers to interact with the brand.  This is an opportunity for Ford.   

Americans have a unique and strong bond with their cars.  Automobiles are  intertwined into the fabric of our culture.  How is it possible that a major Automotive Manufacturer has to publicly state that they are pulling money from Facebook?  The case is clear that Ford and GM could both do a lot more to leverage Facebook, so I think this announcement by GM has more to do with the disarray in their own marketing strategy and less to do with Facebook.  Ford has a solid advertising strategy and can work towards integrating social media strategies into their already solid marketing.  GM may be looking at a larger overhaul of their marketing strategy (their digital strategy in particular needs some work), and online and offline messages should be made to work together. If GM made the announcement of a pull out of Facebook advertising to bide time while they got their digital ducks in a row, well, then who's stock would take a hit?

So to recap,  

• 5/16/2012  GM officially announced today they were pulling their advertising on Facebook.  
• 12/20/2011 GM released their Social Media agency in December 2011 (who was running their Social Media campaigns since December?)
• Chevrolet has a Facebook page which seems to be largely driven by nostalgia and content which figures prominently cars and trucks from yesteryear, which have stood the test of time.
• Chevrolet and Chevy Camaro do not employ their Facebook cover photos for heart pounding car pictures.  Chevrolet has a nostalgia montage, and Chevy Camaro has a wheel.
• GM has a website heavy in flash.  It will not load on a mobile device.
• Ford and Ford Mustang have cover photos showing the Corporate Headquarters and a full view of the Mustang, respectively.
• Ford and Ford Mustang's engagement metrics are a bit higher than Chevrolet and Chevy Camaro.

Perhaps Ford is positioned a bit better because the Company is named Ford, and the brand name for the Cars is also Ford.  Perhaps it is a bit harder for GM because they have more brands to manage and lack the strong umbrella brand identity to organize their marques under.  But a complete pullout of advertising seems a bit drastic, unless you don't understand it anyway.  

Success on Facebook requires:

• Defining the strategic purpose of this medium (I do not want to call it a channel).  Is this medium an acquisition or retention focused medium?
• Defining the nature of your relationship to the consumers.  Are you a cheerleader, advisor, curator, friend, etc.?
• Establishing the narrative, what is the message you want to convey to your fans?  Can you structure your message to work with your other channels?  "Hard sells" do not work well in social media.
• Paying attention to this medium, monitoring the dialogue and commenting appropriately.   
• Establishing in advance Key Performance Indicators that will identify the effectiveness of the strategy. (If your not measuring it you're not managing it!)

Given the keys to success on Facebook, it is rather predictable that GM bailed out.  They lack a strategic focus for this medium, the relationship is more defined by the consumers than by GM, the consumers also lack a narrative from GM. GM also lacks an understanding of using the images and timeline to their brand's advantage.  I cannot speak to the monitoring or the KPI measurement, but if they dropped their social agency, it is probably not being measured.  Given the shambles of their social strategy why do I care if they pulled their budget from Facebook?  As a marketer I am glad that they are now "out" of Facebook ads, since the inventory of ads will be freed up a bit for those Marketers who can see the path of how Facebook ads work with the other components of their digital strategy.

And in five years, if we think back on this day, we may see it in the context of the knowledge that we build and the best practices that will no doubt be in place for Social Media.  In five years it will be hard to understand how a major corporation made such a move to pull out.

I would love to know if you agree.  Let me know.

Rhonda Knehans Drake

Beer, Sex and Social Media

On May 9th, Rhonda and I attended the first annual Social Media Benchmark conference (www.benchmark-nyc.com) in NYC.

It was a unique conference of a smaller scale that focused on the measurement of social media marketing. Loved it. I found out about it from a student of mine, Katie Krum, who tweeted about the event. Thank you, Katie.

What was my main learning? My main learning is that we are still not measuring or even trying to measure the ROI of our social media marketing campaigns. And to be honest with you, I am not sure why. It is quite disappointing.

When I ask one presenter (to remain nameless) after his presentation why this might be, he said that it is too difficult to bring all the pieces together.

Infinity presented and had no mention of ROI

Unicef presented and had no mention of ROI.

Anheuser Busch presented and had no mention of ROI.

Every company spoke about its great outreach, messaging, and fun and creative campaigns, but none of them mentioned a real assessment of ROI.

Both Rhonda and I were shocked by this. I would have thought we are past the point of enjoying the sandbox without having to justify our playtime with hard numbers. Come on, guys. We can do better than this. For example, to create a nonprofit outreach in the social space for a specific cause, I am sure we can at the very least examine the lift in donations pre versus post campaign. Right?

As a matter of fact, I am about to come out with some very cool social media ROI calculators that should help in this regard. But until then, companies need to try a bit harder.

What were the highlights of the conference? Hearing Cindy Gallop (“make love not porn”) and Jon Steinberg of Buzzfeed (formerly of Google) speak. They were amazing...even though Cindy made me, as a male, feel like a heel.

But the best part was that I was able to get 6 of my Masters students from NYU volunteer gigs at the event so they could attend for free. They manned the registration desk and took on other responsibilities that allowed them to network with all the great people there. I hope they all land great jobs.

All in all a great day!

Perry

The Force that is Facebook

As the days countdown to the Facebook IPO, many industry watchers have put forth their opinion regarding the value of Facebook as a company. It seems to have become the national pastime to guess what Facebook will ultimately be valued at, and what will happen next within the organization.

Because we, at Drake Direct, are in the Marketing Analytic and Social Media Strategy space, we are close watchers of Facebook. We, therefore, decided to review what we knew about Facebook to determine if they are worth the estimated $100-$104 Billion.

We took into consideration the following when we evaluated Facebook:

• Advertising trends
• Online vs Offline
• Decomposition of Online advertising spend by channel
• Decomposition of Online advertising by major providers
• Member growth trends for Facebook
• Time spent on site (Facebook Vs. Google)
• Unique visitor growth (Facebook Vs. competitive set)
• Growth in Facebook Business Pages

Additionally we considered their revenue streams:

• The traditional advertising model as it relates to Facebook and the competitive set
• Business growth related to apps, games, and virtual eCommerce
• Potential new sources of revenue
• Mobile ads
• Search
• Social Reader Fees
• Initiation of fees for Business Pages
• Recent acquisitions of Instagram and Tagtile

In weighing all of the facts that others have put forth about Facebook, we have concluded the following:

• Currently Facebook is under monetized. This was probably a strategic decision on the part of Facebook management. It is clear that the priorities for the organization were first to ensure their infrastructure was solid, and secondly to monetize the business to the fullest.
• Facebook’s user base is very large, active, and loyal. Their growth into new areas cannot be judged by their current business activities. No one could have predicted that Google, a dominant search engine at the start of the Internet boom, would have developed into the empire it is today.
• As database experts, we see Facebook’s biggest, and perhaps most under-reported asset, as their database. Facebook possess a database of 900 million users, with virtually every piece of information about an individual from relationships, to political affiliation, leisure time, vacation preferences, entertainment interests, brand preferences and more, all given freely by users. Facebook sits as the gatekeeper, but can monetize this enormous asset by charging a fee to target marketing communications for advertisers. One metric of a database business is the value relative to the database size. By this metric, at $115.55 per user, we feel that Facebook is a relative bargain since on average, there should be at least this much value, on average, per user to be gained.

To view the entire white paper, you can download at: www.drakedirect.com/facebook_whitepaper_by_drakedirect.pdf

We hope you enjoy,
Rhonda Knehans Drake & Perry D. Drake

Dancing with the Stars, Season 2012: The Dance-Off, Google vs Facebook

As a follow up to my November 2009 post titled Facebook Nearing the Finish Line I was anxious to see how Facebook traffic patterns now compare to that of Google and if they have surpassed Google in terms of users. Let's take a look.

In that blog post, if you recall, I created two charts using complete.com. One to show the number of visits to each domain and another to show the number of unique visitors (users, if I may) as recreated below in Figures 1 and 2

Figure 1

Figure 2

In both cases we could see Facebook making great gains on Google during those recessionary times.

Additionally, as you may recall, in another blog entry titled Has Facebook Been Lucky I predicted that Facebook would surpass Google before the end of 2009 in terms of Visits. So the big question is...did they?

Yes and no.

On Christmas Eve and Christmas Day 2009, Facebook surpassed Google in terms of visits for the very first time according to Hitwise (Facebook Surpasses Google As Number One US Site)

Then Facebook's line actually crossed Google's for the first time in May 2010. Facebook held the trophy until roughly April 2011, then the dance-off began, as clearly seen in the updated chart shown below in Figure 3.

Figure 3

Regarding unique visitors (or if I may call them users), Facebook is not quite there yet. But as more and more of the total internet population establishes those Facebook accounts, that day will happen. And it is nearing quickly as the updated chart below shows in Figure 4.

Figure 4

As can been seen Facebook almost touched Google in December 2011. In total Facebook's uniqiue visitor count has roughly increased 30% since October 2009 according to Nielsen (Facebook Gains on Google) and our research.

So now we can appreciate why Google tried to create Google+.

Google realizes and can clearly see we as individuals are changing the way we gather information prior making decisions of any kind including purchases. Google is no longer the only option. We view crowd sourced options pretty highly. Especially from our circle of friends. And that is what Facebook allows us to do in addition to allowing us to stay in touch with our friends and loved ones by sharing experiences, stories, photos, videos, etc.

Does this spell trouble for Google? I doubt it. But, keep in mind, Facebook is pushing into search...



To read more on this take a look at Facebook Delves Deeper Into Search published by Bloomberg Businessweek, March 29, 2012. To date search had not been a priority for Facebook but things are changing.



So, stay tuned for the next installment of Dancing with the Stars! It should be an exciting showdown.

Perry
Special thanks once again to my research analyst Yuko Ichihara for her valuable research work and insights provided.

Big Data, What Does it Mean? What Does it Mean for Me?

Big Data, a term that has been showing up in our industry’s papers for a while lacks a consistent definition, yet it certainly conjures up images: a mountain of information; an ocean of data; so much data that it can only be contained in the “clouds.”



These images don’t provide definitions, however, and definitions help us to understand what Big Data really is and where it is coming from. Big Data is unstructured data, which due to its nature takes up more storage space and requires new technology to house, and analyze.

Where is the big data coming from?
Big data is coming from everywhere. The social media phenomenon is one huge source with 1 billion Facebook users globally while twitter has hit the 200 million mark (Source: http://mashable.com/2012/03/06/facebook-growth-slows/). According to the YouTube site, they have over 537 million videos available for viewing, with new content being added at a rate of one hour of video every second.

Besides purely social media sites, another source of big data is typical business enterprises. With the cost of storage dropping due to an ever-increasing number of choices to store data, corporations now have the ability to store data which was previously lost, and the choices for storage have expanded to meet the demand. What types of unstructured data does business have?

General business information

• Human resource files
  
• Email archives
  
• Project files and documentation
  
• Customer service correspondence
  
• Legal documents
  
• Shipping manifests
  

Industry specific big data

Some big data is derived from industry specific needs. Examples of specific industries known to have big data issues are:

• Healthcare Industry--Medical records including scans and images which can be accessed by medical professionals all over the country.
  
• Insurance Industry—Insurance companies now routinely photograph for claims purposes and these images can even travel with the claims process allowing customers to access the status of their claims and the process of the repairs online.
  
• Shipping industry—Probably everyone has tracked a package and looked up the scanned signature of the receiver.
  
• Media industry—companies in the media industry leverage their digital assets online and thus must maintain the data in storage and in databases for easy access to recall when needed.
  
• Travel and Hospitality industry—some hotel chains maintain that they can serve you better by maintaining your individual preferences on file. In addition, thanks to the world of providing ratings for everything under the sun, the hospitality industry can maintain customer feedback on their various properties with the goal of benchmarking and improving satisfaction.
  
• The energy sector—oil and gas drilling equipment are now producing data in real time to broadcast various parameters of the drill. Devices read and transmit data to allow for early warning of problems in the field.
  

Where is the big data going?
Currently the solutions regarding the storage of big data are outpacing the data analytic tools. Some companies manage their data storage in house and have merely ramped up the number of servers utilized to house the data.

Other companies may find that outsourcing the task of storing big data is a better option. One thing is certain, however, and that is that the mere existence of Big Data is driving innovation, and creating a lot of opportunities in the Information Technology sector.

Cloud computing is one of the outflows of big data. Data storage in the cloud makes sense to some businesses because the storage of the data can be centralized and the access can be distributed to all end users.

What are the leading technologies to utilize big data?
Hadoop, is the name of the technology developed to manage big data, fundamentally, Hadoop allows software to be run in a distributed manner across very large datasets, so that thousands of nodes of computing power are leveraged to process the data much more quickly than if just a single or a small number of nodes were used ( http://radar.oreilly.com/2012/02/what-is-apache-hadoop.html ). The engine of Hadoop, MapReduce, efficiently leverages the power of a network of computers to push work to available nodes for a processing task. This engine, originated at Google to reduce the time required to create web search indexes.

Hadoop is being utilized at many of the large companies including Facebook, LinkedIn, The New York Times, American Airlines, AOL, Twitter among others.

The technologies developed thus far to leverage large datasets involve the ability to search and retrieve information.

How can organizations extract value from big data?
Before the value can be extracted from these enormous datasets, each organization who is capturing data must have good data management processes to scrub and store the data. Many companies lack the resources to complete this fundamental step.

A comprehensive benchmarking study from The Economist Intelligence Unit Sponsored by SASindicates that the experience and value derived from big data is variable based on the individual business, the particular business model, and the discipline they have adopted around their data processes.

In this study only 22% of the 586 senior executives interviewed would characterize their organization as putting nearly all of the data that is of real value to good use. While 53% said they leverage about half of their organization’s valuable data.

Also quoted in the research findings is Stan Lepeak, Research Direct in KPMG’s Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory group who notes, ”The process of capturing is actually relatively easy, and these firms have gotten very good at it over the last 10 to 15 years.” He notes that the cost of the actual data, as well as the storage and data warehousing products needed to collect them, has dropped dramatically over the last decade. “But a number of them are struggling to extract value from the data. In particular, many are failing to organize them properly so that they can be analyzed and queried. And often they don’t have people with the skills to interpret the results.” You can find this complete study in pdf file format at: http://www.managementthinking.eiu.com/sites/default/files/downloads/SAS_BigData_final_0.pdf

Some data managers concede that while they believe that some of the data they capture has very high value, other information may be completely worthless. Their jobs are so fast-paced, however, it is not possible to make the case that some data lacks value while the transactions accumulate constantly. Showing the value (or lack thereof) is not the responsibility of the IT teams.

The most common problem among companies who fail to extract value from their data is that they have too much data and too few resources, 45% of the respondents to the Economist Intelligence Unit Study cite this issue as their biggest challenge.

There is an emergence in the discipline of data science which incorporates ideas from computer science, mathematics, statistical analysis, data visualization and social science, to meet the demand for data scientists which is anticipated due to the increasing prevalence of Big Data. Hum…maybe I can help NYU create such a program.

Does everyone believe in the value of big data?
There are data skeptics who believe that the talk of big data is a bunch of hype. That it is never really necessary to capture all of the data associated with some process precisely because of the volume. Since such volumes of data are unlikely to ever be mined to reveal their value, a sample of the data should be sufficient to determine the value of saving entire transactional histories. There will always be skeptics in the world, and their influence looms larger when a new concept is in the formative stages.

In addition, some IT leaders believe that for their organization, there just isn’t enough data for it to be classified as “Big Data.” For this group, it can be argued, that the Big Data movement is less about the absolute size of the data being managed, and more about the new tools and practices that are being deployed to maximize the efficiency of scrubbing and processing the data.

I hope this helped clarify for you what big data is, and how we will utilize it in the near future.

Rhonda Knehans Drake
President, Drake Direct

What is Driving Facebook Traffic Today?

Wondering what Facebook traffic patterns look like lately and if they are still tied to the unemployment rate as I proved in a prior blog post. Well, wait no more.

If you recall from my prior blog entry in 2009 titled “Has Facebook Been Lucky” I reported that unique visitors to Facebook were climbing exponentially throughout the recession we were facing at that time. I additionally noted that traffic to Facebook during that same time also had a 98% correlation with the unemployment rate. And to top it off, it all made perfect sense. During that time many people were losing their jobs and were seeking to reconnect with past friends and acquaintances. Facebook was the perfect vehicle. Individuals were reaching out to Facebook and creating accounts at lightning speed. See Figure 1 below from 2009 revealing this phenomenon (click on figure for larger image).

Figure 1: Facebook Unique Visitors Vs Unemployment Rate through September 2009

Now two years later, I felt it was time to revisit this story. In particular I wondered two things:

• Is the relationship between Facebook traffic and the unemployment rate the same?
  
  
• is traffic to Facebook still skyrocketing?
  

Let’s take a look.

The Relationship Between Facebook and the Unemployment Rate

Facebook visitors are continuing to climb as Figure 2 below shows (click on figure for larger image). However, at a much slower rate than we saw during the height of the recession in 2008 and 2009. In October ’09, at the point where the unemployment rate began to decline, we note the growth rate of Facebook unique visitors has definitely slowed down. And, as of April ’10, how this Facebook visitor metric relates to the unemployment rate has definitely changed. So the question is why and does this make sense.

Figure 2: Facebook Unique Visitors vs. Unemployment Rate through January 2012

Current Facebook Visitor Dynamic

The dynamic observed today makes perfect sense based on other circumstances that have transpired since 2009 and how we are now using Facebook today versus two years ago. Let’s take a look:

• It has been reported that both big companies and small businesses have increasingly jumped into Facebook since 2010.
  
  
• In February 2010 there were more than 3 million active business pages on Facebook, nearly double the 1.6 million it reported in December 2009. Wow!
  
  
• Pages that Facebook defines as local businesses went from 700,000 actives to 1.5 million. Local businesses comprised half of the overall increase in active Pages over the last couple of months (from December 2009 to February 2010).
  
  
• According to another study, it has been reported the average user becomes a fan of 4 pages every month. (New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages, http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/15/new-facebook-statistics-show-big-increase-in-content-sharing-local-business-pages).
  
  
• According to research from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth 56% of Fortune 500 companies had a Facebook profile in 2010.(Fortune 500 Social Media Use: Twitter Overtakes Facebook, http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/4041/fortune-500-social-media-use-twitter-overtakes-facebook)

So in other words, we are now using Facebook to interact with brands we “like” in addition to stay in touch with friends and family. We’ve developed more intimate relationships with our beloved brands on Facebook.

Other developments over the past two years also driving us to Facebook include the following facts:

• The gamification of Facebook has also taken place since that time also. In fact, Facebook casual gaming has helped to triple the number of gamers in the US in the past three years. http://news.yahoo.com/study-facebook-gaming-declines-2011-social-gaming-seeking-054626421.html
  
  
• Product discounts and "social badging" are the most commonly cited motivations for "liking" brands on Facebook, according to a survey conducted by ExactTarget released in September 2010. (Facebook Users Like Brands for Discounts, Social Badging, http://www.marketingprofs.com/charts/2010/3882/facebook-users-like-brands-for-discounts-social-badging)

So, maybe there is another connection to the unemployment rate? Could the time we spend on Facebook now be correlated with the unemployment rate? The answer is a big fat yes.

The correlation with the unemployment rate has shifted from unique visitors to time spent as Figure 3 below clearly depicts (click on figure for larger image).

Figure 3: Facebook Time Spent vs. Unemployment Rate through 2011

By examining this graph we note, as the economy improves the time spent on Facebook is also decreasing. The correlation between the two metrics is significant. Even though unique visitors is still increasing as was shown in Figure 2. As the population shifts back to work, our time is now shifting away from leisure and as a result we spend less time on Facebook. Makes perfect sense. So cool. Love data!

Summary

In 2008 and 2009 we saw that Facebook was a means of people connecting with each other as the unemployment rate was high, and many individuals were seeking work, and reconnecting with their contacts. In 2010, we saw many businesses jump into Facebook to create brand pages and monetize this channel. We noted the increase in overall business pages nearly doubled during 2010. This increase in business pages, coupled with the improving employment situation led to a new dynamic in Facebook; people connecting with brands and a shift in time spent on Facebook. As more people enter the job market, the time spent on Facebook declines, and this relationship is evident even as overall Facebook users climb albeit at a slower rate than 2009.

Perry

Special thanks to Yuko Ichihara, my Research Analyst, for her valuable research work and insights provided.