Facebook Continues to Dominate with Exceptional Growth Worldwide

A social network that started from a Harvard dorm room in 2004 as a way for Ivy League university students to network, Facebook very quickly caught on and grew in popularity after it became accessible to the public in 2006. Within a very short period of time, the megahit social media network had millions of users, with more than 500 million by 2010. And resources, such as Jan Rezab, CEO of Socialbakers, believe Facebook will exceed 1 billion users within a few months as we move into 2012.

 Socialbakers reports that over half of the U.S. population uses Facebook. But maybe one of the even more impressive aspects of Facebook is its growth around the globe.  Facebook’s impact has been far reaching, and it’s clear that other social networks are becoming outnumbered. Per Socialbakers, over the past 3 months, just a little more than 50% of Facebook’s overall growth occurred in only eight countries in Asia and Latin America, including Vietnam (2.8%), Indonesia (3.5%), South Korea (3.3%), Japan (3.7%), Taiwan (2.4%), India (12.8%), Brazil (18.5%), and Mexico (4.2%).  Do the math, and Brazil and India captured 33.3% of that growth where Facebook’s on the way to surpassing the most dominant social network in those two countries, Google Orkut.

Facebook’s success can be credited to several factors. As reported in a recent Mercury News article, “Facebook’s relentless spread is a vindication of founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s growth-first principle” where the social network has “focused primarily on adding users, not building revenue” since its inception. Aside from founder Zuckerburg’s creative and genius factor, Facebook’s ability to have a borderless effect around the world is evident. It’s universal and easy-to-use, allowing friends and family to easily keep in touch. It’s also possible to translate Facebook into a user’s local language via a software application the Company launched in 2008. In addition, Facebook has built-in geographic modifier capability, meaning that users have a local experience while being able to network globally. Facebook’s search capability also allows individuals to search within Facebook similarly to how we use Google, Bing, and Yahoo to find businesses and people around the world.

On the business side, Facebook has come a long ways in building a successful platform for businesses to market their products and services. The search and geo-modifier capability mentioned above is huge for local businesses who want to be found by their local market online. Facebook also gives businesses the ability to reach almost a billion consumers in an already-made network where businesses can create Facebook ads and more that can specifically target certain users based on a variety of demographics, including age, location, gender, user preferences, and more.

Facebook’s staying power is also evident in its ability to change its user interface fairly often, and still retain its users. Sure, many of them will gripe about the change over the first few days after it’s occurred, and many even post their frustration directly on Facebook about the change. But in the end, they all still stay, and after a few days of getting used to the new look or updated capabilities, all goes back to normal and the users go back to business and networking as usual.