The Ultimate List of Facebook Statistics for 2024

As a marketer, it is important to keep an eye on current trends and developments in social media. Statistics are an indispensable guide at this point because they provide answers to the burning questions: Which platform is particularly promising right now? And which content format gets the most attention? The following 71 Facebook statistics tell you how things are currently with the top dog among social networks.

Facebook: facts and data on the history of the platform

1. On February 4, 2004, Facebook was founded, then still under the name “Facemash” and sometime later as “Thefacebook”. The social network was founded by Harvard student Mark Zuckerberg. On September 20, 2005, “The” was deleted from the name and the network was given its current name.
2. However, Mark Zuckerberg first had to buy the domain because Facebook.com was already taken. The proud price of the domain: $ 200,000.
3. Actually, Facebook was conceived as a pure university network. While it was initially a privilege for Harvard students, other universities gradually gained access to the social network, starting with Yale and Stanford.
4. On December 1, 2004, the platform broke the one million user mark for the first time.
5. From October 2005, Facebook expanded its network worldwide. Now European universities were also given access, starting with the UK.
6. Since September 2, 2006 anyone can join the social network. The only requirements: A minimum age of 13 years and a valid email address.
7. Hard to imagine nowadays: The Like button was not always part of the repertoire of the social network. Facebook only introduced it on the evening of February 9, 2009 (local time).
8. Three years later, on April 9, 2012, Facebook announced the purchase of rival Instagram for $ 1 billion.
9. On February 1, 2014, it was announced that Facebook was taking over its next competitor: the mobile messaging app WhatsApp. Compared to Instagram, Facebook has to pay significantly more for it: the deal costs a total of 16 billion US dollars.
10. On June 4, 2015, Facebook published the so-called Lite Apps in over 100 countries, including developing countries in particular. The Lite apps should reduce data consumption and thus benefit people with a low internet speed. This paved the way for the social network to achieve global success.
11. On June 20, 2018, Instagram released the new IGTV app. This is intended to compete with the video platform YouTube in particular by allowing videos up to an hour in length to be uploaded.

Now that you know the history of Facebook, let’s take a look at the company’s expansive history. Because marketers in particular need to know how Facebook works and how successful the social network is in order to align and adapt their marketing activities. The following Facebook statistics should therefore give you a deeper insight into the largest social network in the world.

General Facebook statistics

1. Facebook’s profits were $ 18.49 billion in 2019.
2. Facebook is the sixth most valuable company in the world.
3. Since January 1, 2013, Mark Zuckerberg has earned one dollar a year.
4. This is not too dramatic, however, since his personal fortune amounts to around 60 billion US dollars.
5. In 2019, 44,942 employees worked for Facebook.
6. 100 billion messages are sent every day via Facebook’s additional services, such as Instagram.
7. Facebook is the third most visited website in the world. Only YouTube and Google end up ahead of the social network.
8. The most used reaction emoji is “Love”, it accounts for more than half of the emoji reactions.

We realize: Facebook is huge. No other social platform can currently keep up with the number of users on the network. From a marketing perspective, this gives rise to several questions: Who exactly are Facebook users? Which target groups could be relevant for your brand? So that you don’t have to puzzle any longer, we have compiled the latest facts on Facebook user numbers that can help you tailor your advertising measures even more precisely to your potential customers.

Who is using Facebook? Current Facebook user numbers

1. Facebook has almost 2.5 billion monthly active users worldwide (as of 4th quarter 2019). These are users who have logged in at least once in the last 30 days.
2. In terms of daily user numbers, it looks just as impressive: the social network had 1.66 billion daily active Facebook users in the fourth quarter of 2019.
3. In 2017, 26.3 percent of the world’s population already used Facebook.
4. If all services such as Instagram, WhatsApp, and Co are considered together, the usage rate for January 2020 is 49 percent of the world’s population.
5. This is mainly thanks to the Asia-Pacific region. In Europe, user numbers fell for the first time in the first quarter of 2018.
6. In Western Europe, Facebook is used by 54 percent of the population and in Eastern Europe by 49 percent of the population.
7. In Germany, Facebook has around 32 million active users per month.
8. 29 million of these users, i.e. around 91 percent, use the mobile version of Facebook.
9. 23 million Germans use Facebook every day.
10. 62 percent of Facebook users worldwide are under 35.
11. There are even more younger users on Instagram: 71 percent of Instagram users worldwide are under 35. When planning your campaign, you should therefore consider the network in which you are more likely to reach your target group.
12. The average adult in the US used Facebook for around 38 minutes a day in 2018. Instagram’s average usage time in 2018 was 27 minutes a day. Since social media accompany people every day, marketers must not neglect them as a communication channel.
13. 74 percent of Facebook users have a high income.
14. 98 percent of active users worldwide use Facebook mobile. Optimizing your ads for mobile viewing is therefore not an option, it is a must.
15. 64 percent of all people prefer to use (Facebook) messaging than a phone call to contact a company.
16. 43 percent of Facebook users from the USA use the social network to read the news.
17. The age group 65+ is the fastest-growing user group on Facebook.
18. Facebook deleted 583 million fake accounts in the first quarter of 2018 alone.
19. The most popular is the main page of Facebook with 213 million likes.
20. The most popular European on Facebook is the footballer Cristiano Ronaldo with 123 million likes.

Facebook advertising statistics

Facebook’s advertising revenue is growing quarter by quarter. And not by chance: the platform offers advertisers a broad portfolio of advertising measures. Marketers are spoiled for choice here. The following Facebook advertising statistics should therefore provide you with some orientation.

1. Facebook had an advertising revenue of $ 69.66 billion in 2019.
2. 94 percent of advertising revenue was generated by mobile ads in the third quarter of 2019. We see again: The omnipresence of mobile use must not be neglected.
3. If you want your promotions to be effective, you should think about the type of content you are posting. Because only 18 percent of the top 500 content on Facebook is images.
4. Videos, on the other hand, make up almost 82 percent of the top 500 content.
5. Particularly with videos, attention should be paid to optimization for mobile devices, especially for vertical viewing, since more than 75 percent of videos worldwide are viewed on mobile devices.
6. This year, advertising revenues from videos on Facebook in the US will amount to approximately 10.2 billion US dollars, according to initial forecasts.
7. If the brand name and a brand-specific message are presented in the first ten seconds of a video, there will be three times more interactions.
8. In the final quarter of 2019, the average global ad revenue per user was $ 8.38.
9. In Europe, the average revenue per user for the last quarter of 2019 was $ 12.99. In a global comparison, the European market shows enormous potential in terms of advertising revenue.
10. On average, videos get 59 percent more engagement than any other type of Facebook post. Videos should definitely be part of your advertising campaign.
11. 60 percent of Facebook users are open to receiving personal messages from companies.
12. In the 2018 Christmas season, two-thirds of respondents in a global survey said they had sent a message to a company via messaging.
13. The opportunity to buy products in the chat is becoming more and more popular. 45 percent of the so-called conversational commerce buyers use messaging to get information about the product and the price.
14. The average user on Facebook clicks on 8 ads every month.
15. In the fourth quarter of 2019, the average price for an ad dropped 5 percent.
16. More than 140 million companies use Facebook apps every month.
17. According to a study, the organic reach of a company on Facebook was just two percent in 2014. Since Facebook does not publish any corresponding data on its own, it is difficult to name the current organic reach. On the basis of the constant algorithm adjustments, which consistently favor contributions from family and friends, experts assume that it is now even lower and will continue to decline. Your content must therefore be of a higher quality and tailored more precisely to the target group.
18. In a survey, 94 percent of companies said they are active on Facebook. 81 percent are on Instagram. Therefore, in order to reach as many potential customers as possible, you should position your company and your advertising campaigns as broadly as possible.
19. Facebook is used by 90 million SMEs. The social network is no longer just an advertising platform for large corporations.
20. Of these 90 million SMEs, only 7 million were “active advertisers” in the third quarter of 2019.
21. Adding a CTA button can increase the click-through rate by 2.85 times. So actively encourage your prospects to interact with your business and advertising.
22. 9 a.m. is the best time to drop off for Facebook posts on weekdays, as many people peek at their news feed on their way to work or during the first few minutes in the office.

Stories are a new form of advertising on Facebook. Meanwhile, they have become an integral part of Facebook, Instagram and Co. The following statistics will tell you why you should advertise your brand in the stories and optimize it for vertical placement.

Facebook story statistics

1. 500 million people use Instagram stories every day.
2. 300 million people use Facebook stories every day.
3. A total of 1 billion stories are distributed every day via Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Stories have become an integral part of social networks.
4. 40 percent of Instagram stories are viewed worldwide without sound. Customize your content by subtitling videos.
5. 51 percent of users are interested in stories with offers and promos.
6. The Stories format is used by 2 million active advertisers every month.
7. In Germany, an average of 44 percent of users looked for further information on a brand’s website after seeing a product in a story.
8. Ads in stories that were optimized for vertical placement on smartphones increased brand results by 35 percent.

Conclusion: Facebook will continue to be one of the most important platforms for marketers in 2022

Keeping an eye on the latest developments on Facebook is critical to planning a sustainable marketing strategy. The social network for American universities has become a global company that influences numerous channels of your social media marketing through additional services such as Instagram.

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