There Are Over 1 Million Active Advertisers On Facebook

Yesterday, Facebook announced that there were over 1 million active advertisers on the site, with a message thanking each and every one. 

Dan Levy, Facebook’s Director of Small Business, wrote the message, mentioning three companies who he has learned from: “Ministry of Retail in Singapore, Springwools in Ireland, and Scene75 Entertainment Center in Ohio.” He then went on to thank every single one of the over 1 million advertisers for their work on making Facebook what it is today:

I know business owners like these invest their hard earned money and time into running their companies. So today, on behalf of everyone at Facebook, I want to say thank you to them and to the over one million businesses like them who are active advertisers. You have chosen Facebook as a partner to grow your business. We appreciate the chance to work with you, and we celebrate your success.

Levy then invited advertisers to share their tips and success stories on the Facebook for Business pages – Facebook has set up a Success Stories page so businesses can do just that. There are currently only two success stories on the page, one about The English Cheesecake Company and another about Tropical Sky. Thanks to its Facebook engagement, The English Cheesecake Company achieved:

• 11x increase in fanbase
  
• 4500 likes delivered through Sponsored Stories
  
• 30% of new customers come through Facebook
  

While Tropical Sky received:

• 200% increase in fans
  
• 500% increase in Facebook referrals to their site
  
• 192 likes and 26 shares from Mauritius takeover campaigns
  

The Success Stories page has actually been up for some time (I chanced across it earlier this year), but clearly isn’t getting the level of engagement that Facebook want from advertisers. Levy presumably saw the 1 million advertisers milestone as an opportunity to draw more attention to the page.

Facebook are hoping that case studies, such as those on the success stories page, will not only persuade more advertisers onto the site, but also encourage current Facebook advertisers to share their own “tips with others” and talk about Facebook advertising – something that Levy thanks them for in the announcement.

More engagement between advertisers would increase traffic on the site and improve the quality of advertising, as successful brands and companies could advise those that are struggling or new to the site. An active advertising community would also help Facebook identify issues with, and make improvements to, their advertising interface.

Facebook has been targeting small business advertising as an area to expand for some time. Facebook work closely with their larger advertising partners to improve the ads interface, but this can be to the detriment of smaller businesses. An active advertising community would help smaller businesses to get themselves heard. The recent introduction of hashtags, in fact, could help drive conversations within the community, improving social media networking between businesses.
Facebook shared some statistics displaying the importance of small business advertisers on the site:

• There are more than 2 billion connections between local businesses and people.
• In an average week, there are more than 645 million views of, and 13 million comments on, local business Facebook pages.
• Roughly 70 percent of monthly active users in the U.S. and Canada are connected to a local business on Facebook.

Small businesses are clearly an important part of Facebook, providing a significant portion of the company’s advertising revenue, so it is easy to understand why Facebook has been simplifying its advertising service in recent times.

Are you a small business owner? What do you think of Facebook advertising?

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Will Sigsworth

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