The Numbers

This is an enormous market with impressive growth. Facebook has 61 million active users and is growing at 250,000 more every day. Facebook users are primarily college-educated and the fastest growing demographic is the 25+ crowd. Retention is high. More than half of the active users return daily.

The Community

The open Internet is a vast, chaotic place. Scams and spam abound and your message can easily get lost in this ocean of noise. Facebook is a safe haven of real, validated users interconnected by webs of trust with other real users. These interacting communities can help spread your story with more effectiveness than any traditional broadcast medium can allow.

Customer Targeting

Not ready to scale your brand to an audience of this size? Facebook understands that its members are more than just names. With Facebook's Social Ads, companies can target consumers based on their location, sex, age, educational status, workplaces, political views, relationship status, and interests. Instead of just hoping a message reaches the right customers, you can target it precisely to the audience you choose.

Viral Spread through Personal Endorsements

Facebook has many tools to help spread your message. Company Fan Pages are designed to encourage brand loyalty. Interactive applications can be added to these Pages to get customers really involved. The two-way conversations between you and your customers encourage repeat visits. Facebook helps spread the word by letting a Fan's friends know their product and brand preferences. Because people trust their friends and acquaintances far more than any other sources, Facebook "word of mouth" recommendations have tremendous impact.

Conversational Marketing

With company Pages, Facebook models a new breed of corporate website. Unfiltered customer testimonials appear with both positive and negative reviews of a company's products. Companies can use these real conversations to engage consumers in improving existing products or designing new ones.

Facebook is the Future

By early 2009, Facebook is expected to overtake MySpace as the largest social network in the world with an anticipated 200 million registered users.