Facebook made history recently by reaching a significant milestone: a billion users in a single day.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg published a post to announce that “1 in 7 people on Earth used Facebook to connect with their family and friends.” This big feat reinstates Facebook’s leadership in the social media space and gives a real sense of its incredible reach across countries and continents.”
In his post, Zuckerberg further added:
“I’m so proud of our community for the progress we’ve made. Our community stands for giving every person a voice, for promoting understanding and for including everyone in the opportunities of our modern world.”
Making Big Strides
Since its launch in 2004 as a social network for college students, the company has evolved rapidly to expand the scope of its services. It has strived to become more user-friendly and accessible to people across the globe.
As part of its plans, Facebook introduced Internet.org, a partnership with other big tech players to improve net connectivity throughout the world in 2013. The group aims at developing affordable smartphones and other tools that would cut the amount of data needed to run various apps. These tools would also provide basic Internet services for free.
What It Means for Your Business
Facebook’s massive reach has created a plethora of opportunities for businesses of all sizes. It has made businesses realize the tremendous potential of social media marketing to reach their target audience.
A study conducted by G/O Digital Marketing confirms the growing stature of Facebook among its users. According to the study, 68 percent of respondents have used social media sites to look for local businesses.
What’s even more fascinating to note is that about 58 percent of participants expect a response to their queries and complaints on Facebook.
What this means for you as a business owner is that you cannot underestimate the potential of Facebook in helping you connect with your customers. The one billion milestone in itself reflects the incredible size of the Facebook community, which continues to thrive.
And Facebook is very keen on leveraging its position and reach to attract more small businesses.
Recently, the social networking giant announced that it now has 40 million active small business pages. Significantly, nearly all of the 2 million who use the platform to advertise their products and services are small business owners.
Inspired by the numbers, Facebook is planning a slew of changes aimed at keeping business owners like you using the site. Its chat function, for example, will offer live one-on-one support to respond to all of your queries in real-time.
With Facebook trying to position itself as a mainstream marketing solution, it will be harder than ever for small businesses to ignore its necessity.
Image: Mark Zuckerberg/Facebook
Aira Bongco
It just shows that Facebook has really become a household essential. People cannot live without it and people from all over the world flock to the website everyday.