After our blog post Gap Abandons New Logo on October 13, we started to think, how powerful is Facebook?

We already know that Facebook has become the biggest juggernaut in social media.

But how big?

Facebook itself has confirmed that it has over 500 million active members (users who have returned to the site in the last 30 days), with 50% of them logging in daily and 70% of all members living outside the United States.

The largest growth sector for new registrations on Facebook falls into the 24 to 35 yr old markets closely followed by the 35 to 45 yr old group and collectively they make up the majority of the Facebook market place.

So what can Facebook do for your business?
Facebook can benefit your business in 3 ways:
1) Free, highly targeted traffic to your website and ultimately to your products and services.
2) Free list building.
3) Last but most importantly build real and personal relationships directly with your customers.

Obviously this means that not only can you build lasting and real relationships directly with your customers, you can also lose them if you do not listen to them. This is why GAP could have only ignored their Facebook fans at their peril and why they were forced to resort back to their old logo.

In the US virtual gifts and goods are now overtaking advertising on the social network, according to smartphone app analytics firm Flurry. Growing from approximately $600 million in 2008 to $1 billion in 2009. Wedbush Morgan, Securities video game analyst forecasts that social gaming will generate nearly $1.6 billion this year alone.

Mobile is another massive platform for virtual goods. On Apple’s iOS (Apple’s operating system) in September 2010 the average monthly revenue per user from social networking advertisement was a little over $1 where as the average monthly revenue from virtual goods sales was almost $8.

That is a massive 80% of total revenue earned, resulting from virtual goods.

Flurry believes that the “slow acceptance of mobile as a media platform” by ad agencies is a factor for low advertising levels on these sites. Showing “scepticism about the viability of social games and social mobile media as a channel for advertisement”. These ad agencies “appear to be missing a meaningful opportunity to reach a mass market of consumers who have adopted new platforms and forms of content”.

These figures compiled by Flurry show that consumers are spending on the social network and they should give companies and ad agencies alike the confidence to invest in on-line advertising and reach these customers on the new platforms, to which they are now playing.

If you are interested in on-line advertising or you would like to know more about how on-line advertising could help your business, then why not call agog on 01782 213095 or drop us an email to admin@agog.co.uk and we’ll get back to you.

Today is Google’s 12th Birthday.

To celebrate their birthday, Google has swapped their regular logo with an image of a cake, created by the American painter Wayne Thiebaud. Thiebaud is famous for his paintings of cakes and other everyday objects, and has been associated with the Pop art movement.

Happy Birthday Google!

What would we do without you?