New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages
How much traffic does Facebook now send to other web sites? Analytics firm Compete tells the San Francisco Chronicle that 13 percent of US traffic to big web portals — Yahoo, MSN, AOL — came from the social network in December, the most out of any traffic source. What does Facebook itself report about this data?
The company doesn’t typically share a lot of about the traffic trends it sees internally, but we can glean some new information from the Statistics page it occasionally updates. Facebook usually updates some stats on the page when it makes larger announcements about its traffic, and it did so earlier this month when it said it grew from 350 million monthly active users at the beginning of December to 400 million now. Out of all of the items with new numbers, content-sharing (like posting links to content on a web portal from within Facebook), is way up. So are stats for Pages.
We go into more details below, based on our ongoing coverage of these stats as Facebook has updated them; for reference, see our posts covering the other updates, from last December, September and July.
All in all, Compete’s content-sharing data appears to be directionally correct, as it and other third-party data services usually are about Facebook traffic.
Status updates: In December, Facebook said that more than 35 million users update their status every day. This number has not changed today, so either the number of people posting status updates has not gone up along with its 25% user growth, or Facebook hasn’t updated the stat, or both. However, Facebook says that the number of status updates is going up, from 40 million in September to 55 million in December to 60 million as of February. The rate of status-updater growth appears to have slowed considerably, in contrast to the site’s overall growth. It’s not clear why, although a series of news feed and home pages changes starting last fall have de-emphasized status updating as a feature.
Photo uploading: The rate of photo uploading also continues to grow, although not as fast as it had earlier this year. Now, Facebook says more than 3 billion photos are being uploaded every month, up from 2.5 billion in December, 2 billion in September and 1 billion in July.
Sharing pieces of content: Defined as “web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.” — so, the source of the new traffic Compete is showing to portals — this category has been seeing massive growth. Facebook reported 1 billion items shared a week in July, 2 billion shared a week in September, then a big jump to 3.5 billion in December, and another big jump to 5 billion a week as of earlier this month. This is a key metric in Facebook’s vision of helping people to share more, and the many big and small changes the company has been making to the site are apparently having a significant impact.
Events creation: For whatever reason, Facebook has only intermittently updated this stat, and it hasn’t done so since December, when it said 3.5 million events were created every month. It didn’t report new numbers in September, but it said 2.5 million as of July. Growth here hasn’t been huge, as far as we can tell; the new home page redesign makes events more prominent, so perhaps we’ll see more stats, soon.
Pages: There are now more than 3 million active Pages on Facebook, nearly double the 1.6 million it reported in December. While it didn’t previously disclose the same Pages stats, Facebook began doing so that month; compared against the latest update, they show new pattersn. Pages that Facebook defines as local businesses went from 700,000 actives to 1.5 million. In other words, local businesses comprised half of the overall increase in active Pages over the last couple of months. Facebook separately says that the average user becomes a fan of 4 pages every month, double the December average. However, it has not updated the number of fans from December, which as 5.3 billion.
And, for a fun look at just what the latest updates looks like in graphical form, check out this guest post from Muhammed Saleem on Mashable.
February 15th, 2010 at 5:49 pm
Is there a general time most people are logging on? I know there are different time zones around the world. But generally? Or by region?
February 15th, 2010 at 11:00 pm
Great acticle….still no mention of the recent changes…on the way it looks and the best way to navigate the page..we are still leaving the site to go to outside locations…if they could combine Facebook-skype-twitter and ustream live all together on the one page then we would all be there…
February 16th, 2010 at 1:41 am
[...] Inside Facebook – New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business… [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 8:14 am
The curve remind me some interesting mathematic number , but with one exception, we are 6 billion people, at one point the Big increase will have to stop or we are going to also have facebook profile for pets and robots
February 16th, 2010 at 1:57 pm
[...] New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages, Inside Facebook [...]
February 16th, 2010 at 2:22 pm
[...] New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages Wow much traffic does Facebook now send to other web sites? Analytics firm Compete says 13 percent of US traffic to big web portals — Yahoo, MSN, AOL — came from it in December, the most out of any traffic source. What does Facebook itself report about this data? [...]
February 18th, 2010 at 8:54 am
Amazing…
February 19th, 2010 at 4:58 pm
I think the only reason of the increase in business pages is that people are creating and becoming fans of pages for everyday things such as “Imitating the annoying answering machine lady.”
February 21st, 2010 at 8:01 pm
[...] New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages – Facebook historical statistics as of February 2010 based on previous updates to their public statistics page. [...]
February 22nd, 2010 at 7:31 am
[...] Facebook says more than 3 billion photos are being uploaded every month, up from 2.5 billion in December, 2 billion in September and 1 billion in July. (source) [...]
February 26th, 2010 at 1:07 am
[...] jog Facebook‘as sugeneruoja 44% visų socialinių tinklų informacijos dalinimosi srauto. Ši naujausia Facebook statistika rodo, kad žmonės vis daugiau dalinasi informacija, ir kad vietinis verslas sparčiai kuriasi [...]
March 1st, 2010 at 10:28 pm
[...] FunSpace has grown the most since mid-February. On the 16th, it was still at 4.5 million MAU; today it accounts for about half of Slide’s MAU, at 21.7 million MAU. It is focused on sharing videos and other content. This is generally what Facebook wants to enable, and its own data reflects the trend. [...]
May 29th, 2010 at 1:59 pm
[...] Facebook is more than a place where kids play games. It’s the leading social media, with nearly 500 million users, each having their own personal network comprised of an average of 130 friends. Altogether, these [...]
June 2nd, 2010 at 10:02 pm
HAHAHAHAHAHA. I am fat
July 14th, 2010 at 2:47 pm
[...] is spreading at an alarming rate – Facebook being the most popular. Just last February, InsideFacebook.com reported more than 3 million active pages on Facebook, nearly double the 1.6 million just a few [...]
August 20th, 2010 at 10:32 am
[...] only that, but Facebook already has a relationship with businesses and advertisers: Over a million local businesses have already created Facebook pages (what used to be called “fan pages”) for their [...]
August 31st, 2010 at 9:44 pm
ahhh!!! i already mention that no one can beat facebook in social media and one thing i also like to mention that this stat more increase upto 20% to 25% right now…
September 3rd, 2010 at 12:34 am
[...] only that, Facebook already has a relationship with businesses and advertisers: more than 1 million local businesses have already created Facebook pages (what used to be called “fan pages”) for their [...]
September 14th, 2010 at 8:00 am
[...] There are more than 3 million active Pages on Facebook, nearly double the 1.6 million it reported in December. Pages that Facebook defines as local businesses went from 700,000 actives to 1.5 million. In other words, local businesses comprised half of the overall increase in active Pages over the last couple of months. (source) [...]
October 31st, 2010 at 5:14 am
[...] Facebook Engagement Statistics via Inside Facebook blog [...]
October 31st, 2010 at 7:09 am
[...] Facebook Engagement Statistics via Inside Facebook blog [...]
November 3rd, 2010 at 10:03 am
Does anyone know how many FaceBook pages there are nowaday – 6 months later?
I think this post needs an update ;-)
November 13th, 2010 at 12:16 am
[...] of February, Facebook was having 5 billion pieces of content shared a week, Eric Eldon of Inside Facebook reported. That is a ton of shared content and this number continues to grow as more and more users [...]
December 6th, 2010 at 8:57 am
[...] Since that time, Facebook has gone from approximately 35 million users to more than 500 million, and more than 3 billion photos are now being added to Facebook every month. [...]
December 6th, 2010 at 10:54 am
[...] Facebook having over a reported 500 million users and with over 3 billion photos being added to Facebook every month. It makes sense that Facebook would want to capitalize on all [...]
January 10th, 2011 at 9:24 am
[...] the most poignant example of a sentimental digital asset. Did you know that as of last February, 3 billion new photos are uploaded to Facebook each month? What’s more, this number is up from 2.5 billion just 2 months prior, and up from 1 billion [...]
January 10th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
Interesting & amazing …………
March 1st, 2011 at 11:08 am
[...] Nobody knows the number of still images posted online, but here’s an indicator: every month, Facebook alone uploaded 3 billion photos (February [...]
March 11th, 2011 at 4:53 am
[...] i kommentar #39 kommer Timme fra K-forum Boserup til undsætning og henviser til et indlæg fra All Facebook hvor der bl.a. står: “In December, Facebook said that more than 35 million users update [...]
March 11th, 2011 at 8:10 am
[...] of these stats as Facebook insidefacebook.com [...]
May 3rd, 2011 at 6:26 am
[...] Business started to seriously take to Facebook marketing in early 2010 as the number of Facebook pages more than doubled with the 1.5 million ‘page’s in December 2009 increasing to over 3 million by February 2010, according to Insidefacebook.com [...]
May 11th, 2011 at 11:27 am
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May 11th, 2011 at 11:53 am
[...] more than 300 billion photos uploaded to Facebook every month, users are interacting with more content every day. When brands are introduced into this picture [...]
May 14th, 2011 at 5:08 am
[...] it or not more than 3 billion photos are uploaded to Facebook every month and many of these are ‘tagged’ to indicate friends are in [...]
May 19th, 2011 at 4:28 am
[...] is the largest photo-sharing website in the world – 3bn images are uploaded each month, more than half of what Flickr has on its entire [...]
September 13th, 2011 at 10:39 pm
[...] now, it’s likely that you’re one of the 1.5 million businesses [via http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/15/new-facebook-statistics-show-big-increase-in-content-shari...] with a Facebook page. But just being online is not enough. You’ve got to use this social media [...]
December 6th, 2011 at 5:49 am
[...] Eldon, Eric “New Facebook Statistics Show Big Increase in Content Sharing, Local Business Pages” Inside Facebook, 15 February, 2010. 27 November, 2011.< http://www.insidefacebook.com/2010/02/15/new-facebook-statistics-show-big-increase-in-content-sharin…> [...]
February 10th, 2012 at 7:23 pm
[...] Business started to seriously take to Facebook marketing in early 2010 as the number of Facebook pages more than doubled with the 1.5 million ‘page’s in December 2009 increasing to over 3 million by February 2010, according to Insidefacebook.com [...]
January 20th, 2013 at 8:26 am
[...] to date, with a 1 billion users now uploading another 300 million a day. But 3 years ago, Facebook had 400 million users who were posting about 100 million photos a day. That’s about a 10% annualized boost in photo-sharing activity—hardly a doubling Zuckerberg [...]