Love it or hate it, Facebook is virtually everywhere. Almost all websites are linked to it, whether they are promoting their own page, letting users leave comments using FB accounts, or just inspecting visitors’ behavior with the Facebook pixel.
Although Facebook has grappled with a proliferation of fake news and privacy concerns in the last couple of years, the company has managed to deliver exciting new features and increase its massive user base quarter-by-quarter.
Currently, Facebook is the largest and constantly evolving social networking platform based on new tools, algorithm changes, and shifting demographics. Let’s dive in deep to explore some of the most interesting statistics and facts about Facebook that are particularly useful for marketers and investors.
Table of Contents
General Stats
1. Facebook is the world’s 3rd most visited website (after Google and YouTube). As of the 3rd quarter of 2019, Facebook has 2.45 billion monthly active users.
2. India has the highest number of Facebook users followed by the United States and Indonesia. There are more than 269 million users in India, 183 million in the US, and 123 million in Indonesia.
3. Facebook was the 4th most downloaded app worldwide in the first quarter of 2019, with more than 170 million installs. WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) topped with the list with more than 223 million new installs.
4. 51% of American teens and 71% of American adults use Facebook, the highest penetration of any social networking sites by far. However, teens are expected to drop to 37% by 2022.
5. About 57% of the global Facebook audience are male and 43% are female. However, in the United States, 56% of Facebook users are female and 44% are male.
6. Demographics For American Audience
Less than 10% of Facebook users come from the United States. About 75% of those users live in urban areas, followed by suburban (67%), and then rural (58%).
FB education demographics
- 77% of adults with graduation degree use Facebook
- 71% of adults with some college experience use Facebook
- 60% of adults who have a high school diploma or less use Facebook
FB income demographics
- 75% of adults who make more than $75,000 use Facebook
- 72% of adults who make between $30,000 and $74,999 use Facebook
- 66% of adults who make less than $30,000 use Facebook
Source: Pew Research Center
7. Nearly 3/4 Of Facebook Users Log In Daily
% of social media users with their visit frequencies
Facebook is a part of a daily routine for 74% of its users. They log in to their Facebook account (via desktop or mobile app) at least once a day. 17% of users log in weekly while 9% of users go more than a week without logging into Facebook.
8. 300 Million People Share Facebook Stories Each Day
More than 300 million people use Facebook Stories daily. Although this is far less than the 500 million who use Instagram Stories each day, it is still a significantly large audience.
Stories attract more attention because they appear at the top of the screen in an immersive and ephemeral format. This is why there are 2 million monthly active advertisers on Stories as of 2019.
9. People Spend 38 Minutes On Facebook Daily
On average, American users spend 38 minutes each day on Facebook. However, this is expected to drop in the coming years. According to eMarketers, the time spent on Facebook will fall to 37 minutes by 2021.
10. Over 350 Million Photos Are Uploaded Every Day
Back in 2013, Facebook revealed that its users have uploaded more than 250 billion photos. At that time, more than 350 million photos were being uploaded on a daily basis. This is equivalent to 243,000 uploads per minute and 4,000 uploads per second.
Since 2013, the company hasn’t released new data but the numbers have been more than doubled and a significant increase is expected by the next few years.
11. Facebook Stores Over 300 Petabytes of Data
Facebook has one of the largest data warehouses in the world, storing more than 300 petabytes (300,000,000 gigabytes). The data is used for various applications, ranging from batch processing and machine learning to graph analytics and real-time interactive analytics.
12. What Is The Average Engagement Rate For Page Post?
The average engagement rate for page posts is 3.6%. This includes all types of pages and all types of posts, including page video posts, page photo posts, and page link posts.
13. Page With Fewer Fans Have Better Engagement Rates
Facebook pages with fewer than 10,000 fans have a higher organic reach and better overall engagement rates compared to pages with more than 100,000 fans. On average, organic posts reach just 5.5% of page followers.
14. A typical User likes 13 posts Per Month
On average, a Facebook user likes 1 post almost every other day, makes 5 comments and shares 1 post every month. Moreover, about 13 Facebook adverts are clicked every month.
15. Most Engagement On Facebook Posts Occurs In Weekdays
The best time to share Facebook posts is weekdays from 10 am to 3 pm. According to SproutSocial, noon midweek is the most engaging time to post, whereas Sunday has the least amount of engagement.
16. 60% Of US Digital Video Viewer Use Facebook To Watch Video
In terms of video content, YouTube is way ahead than Facebook. 90% of Americans who watch digital videos do so on YouTube, followed by Facebook (60%) and Instagram (35%).
The data are based on an online survey conducted in Q4 2018, which included over 16,000 internet users.
17. 85% of Facebook Videos Are Watched With The Sound Off
Although Facebook hosts about 8 billion views per day on its platform, as much as 85% of these video views happen without sound. Moreover, people spend three times as much time watching a live video than a pre-recorded one.
18. 15% Of Americans Who Use Social Media Shop On Facebook
In the United States, about 15% of people who use social media find/shop for products and services on Facebook. Pinterest is the most successful platform in this area, with an overwhelming lead at 47%.
19. Facebook handles 2 Billion Searches Per Day
People use Facebook Search to find their friends and what other people are saying about a topic. The platform handles over 2 billion such searches each day against the 2.5 trillion posts. The search results are personalized and include friends’ posts as well as public posts.
20. Facebook Is The Dominant Social Media News Source
About 52% of adults in the United States get news from Facebook. The next popular platform for news is YouTube (28% of US adults get news there), followed by Twitter (17%) and Instagram (14%).
21. Men Appear More Than Women In Facebook News Images
It turns out that men appear twice as often as women do in news images, while more than 50% of photos show exclusively men.
22. Women Are More Likely To Create Effective Groups
Among the tens of millions of Facebook Groups, women are 40% more likely to create groups that become meaningful to other users. About 43% of business Pages are owned by women and they have increased by 21% since 2017.
23. 26% Of US Adults Deleted the Facebook App From Their Phone
Facebook has had some tough years, with many scandals and backlash. One of the major scandals occurred in early 2018 when it was revealed that Cambridge Analytica used personal data of millions of peoples’ Facebook accounts without their consent for political advertising purposes.
Because of such issues, 54% of American adults changed their privacy settings, 42% of adults took a break from checking their Facebook profiles for several weeks, and about 26% of users deleted the app from their smartphone in 2018.
Read: 7 Best Facebook Alternatives That Keep Your Data Private
24. 74% Of Users Are Not Aware That Facebook Collects Their Information
Facebook makes it quite easy for its users to access their ‘ad preferences’ that shows how algorithms list their interests and traits for advertisers. However, according to the Pew Research Center study conducted in 2018, 74% of adult Facebook users in America weren’t aware of the fact that the company collects their personal information.
25. There Are Over 90 Million Small Business On Facebook
As of 2019, more than 90 million small businesses use Facebook. The vast majority of them leverage free tools, such as Facebook Groups, Pages, Messenger. According to the Facebook official report, 50% of them have been able to grow their businesses and hire more people.
26. An Average User Clicks On An Ad Once In 3 Days
A typical Facebook user clicks on 11 ads per month. Men click on fewer ads (10 per month) than women (14). Although the click-through rate is not so impressive, Facebook generates decent revenue just by showing ads.
27. Facebook Generates $7 Per User
Facebook’s average revenue per user in Q3 2019
Globally, Facebook’s average revenue per user is approximately 7 US dollars. The platform generates the majority of its revenues via advertising and social media marketing.
28. 94% Of Ad Revenue Comes From Smartphones
It’s quite surprising that only 6% of Facebook’s advertising revenue comes from desktop. In Q2 2018, 9% of ad revenue came from desktop. While high saturation levels have been achieved across many developed countries, mobile penetration continues to increase within emerging markets.
29. Facebook Loses Millions of Dollars For Every Hour Of Downtime
In 2018, the company reported $55.8 billion in revenue. If we break it down into days, hours and minutes, the numbers look this:
- Daily: $152 million
- Hourly: $6.4 million
- Every minute: $106,700
The worst-even outage occurred on Wednesday 13th March 2019. It lasted for at least 14 hours, costing small advertisers thousands of dollars.
A Few More Interesting Thing To Know
30. In 2017, Facebook hit 800 million monthly gamers. This includes users who play Instant Games or games based on HTML5 format on news feeds and Messenger.
31. Facebook caught nearly 3 billion fake accounts in Q4 2018 and Q1 2019.
32. Every year, Facebook receives several controversies which include conspiracy theories, fake news, user privacy and psychological effects like addiction and low self-esteem.
33. A new study shows that Facebook posts alone can predict diseases like depression, anxiety, and psychoses.
34. The company employs more than 39,000 people and operates 16 data center locations.
Read: 10 Beautiful Concept for a Redesigned Facebook
35. In 2018, Facebook achieved 75% renewable energy for its operations. The company is committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emission by 75% and powering its global operations with 100% renewable energy by the end of 2020.
