1.49 Billion on Facebook

This is simply an amazing number.  Here we are with almost 3 billion people online and half 50% use facebook.  50% of world doesn’t even use 1 language.

This is amazing to think 1 company can grow to this size.  I wonder if these are real accounts, and I wonder if they use it almost daily.  Or possibly a few times per week.

How much they use facebook per day is important also.  Facebook is clearly giving people long-term value and that’s why so many people use it daily as well as how much they share with friends.

Many people only use it, but don’t make money with facebook.  The number of how many use it isn’t just the impressive part it’s how frequently it’s integrated into people’s lives.  At this time I am watching this video for the 3rd or 4th time about how they got the first billion users on facebook.  Chamath Palihapitiya – how we put Facebook on the path to 1 billion users.  To me this has a lot to do with adoption rates and lean startup.  He talks a lot about a-ha moments.

He talks about dogfooding your own product and using your own product to see how it works so you can go through the user experience.  Facebook has been acquiring other companies to have large userbases which is very smart.

They like to control the social media experience from chat, to photo, and more.  I think they should have bought periscope, but they’ll buy one at some point.  Maybe they’ll buy meerkat.  They may even buy twitter at some point, you never know.

Facebook to me is a big photo cloud storage website.  The events and page part isn’t too bad.  The metrics on facebook pages are pretty easy to use, but I just don’t know how much the metrics mean these days on facebook.  I’ve used facebook groups, pages, and my own personal profile a long time.  I have built large facebook pages and used my facebook profile for up to 7 years.

I have got to test a lot of things, and iterated to see what works.  In this video he said getting the users to 7 friends in 10 days is the trick to get the viral loop to scale.

Whatsapp, Messenger, Chat, Instagram

Facebook aquired Whatsapp I think for 16 billion plus 3 billion in stock options if I remember correctly.  Facebook acquired Instagram as well even earlier.  These companies in about 18 months or less were built from scratch.  It’s amazing how many people use instagram and whatsapp.

I’ve never heard anyone talk about whatsapp in real life, and instagram only a couple and of those I’ve noticed hashtags and photos is what makes it work really big.

I use the facebook chat on facebook, but not the messenger on my phone.  I will put 10-20 people in a facebook chat when I want to keep people RSVP or discuss a topic.  I find it works well for a live topic of discussion.  For some it’s too many notifications.  You can have your notifications on or off it’s up to you.  Many don’t have time at work to talk on live facebook chat.  This is why I love periscope.  I can attract the audience that has time, or if they don’t know they can watch the replay, and even if they are busy for the replay they can watch my archived videos on Katch.me/ronorr.  People do love these facebook platforms that they purchased and they don’t want the big competition and they have the money, so they just pay to acquire them, and them integrate them into their facebook platform. It’s a smart move and google has done a lot of it also.  Facebook wanted to buy snapchat but their initial bids were denied.  Snapchat has continued to grow. I personally haven’t had a chance to use snapchat and I know many use it, but it sounds like most are pretty young.  I am focused on periscope for now as I think it’s the only true live real-time environment for both the user and broadcaster.  Most content creators create things with the intent that it will be an archive.  I feel this puts them into a sales mindset and is not as fun for a long-term experience.

Searches, Events, Groups, Pages

With the searches, events, groups and pages it explains how integrated facebook really is in our lives.  People depend on it.  People use it in their daily lives and the more of their lives that are on facebook from photos, to events, to comments on groups, friends, data, details about people that they can look up later the more people will be dependent on facebook.  People’s lives live in this virtual world and that’s why they have to access it daily.  It’s like a big backup of their lives.  It’s just like a smart phone is such a big part of our lives now with calendars, videos, photos, facebook, text, and our contact address book.  It’s impressive how great facebook is at ease of use and getting people to use their products so often.  I am focused on what is used on a daily basis such as email, text, phone, facebook, twitter, or periscope.  I find it so much easier to grow relationships with people who you can talk to daily.  I think periscope is a concept to watch going forward.  Even if periscope doesn’t get used as much as some of these other facebook items, I prefer the 1000 true fans methodology and getting 1000 people with a deeper relationship to get to know me that way I will be able to give them more context and help them long-term and it’s mutual and if they are there to share content, or give hearts on facebook, or give referrals or word of mouth all of this helps a lot.  I would say tracking facebook is very smart because they really know how to keep people’s attention on a daily basis by innovating product.

Thanks,

Ron Orr

Follow me on periscope and twitter @ronorr

www.RonOrr.com