Facebook now has over one million brands and companies advertising on the social network, with 61% of its users in the United Kingdom having “liked” at least one company page on the website.
Dan Levy, Facebook’s director of global marketing solutions for small- and medium-sized businesses, announced the achievement on the company’s blog, titled: One Million Thank Yous.
Advertising is becoming very important for Facebook; the Guardian stated that the company’s ad revenue in the first quarter of this year reached $1.25 billion (£800.8 million), marking a 43% year-on-year increase. Mobile advertisements generated 30% of that revenue.
In a statement, Facebook’s vice president of global marketing solutions, Carolyn Everson, said that businesses on the social network are increasing and that achieving this milestone is an exciting moment for the company. She added that marketers are able to build personal relationships with their audience on Facebook, at such a scale that was not ever possible before.
With this announcement, Facebook also released other data on user engagement in Europe and the UK with local business pages. Businesses in the UK have made 295 million connections with users, which is the aggregate number of “likes’ on their business pages. These pages attract 55 million views and 3 million comments every week, according to Facebook. But there is one thing that advertisers still wait for – the option to run video ads.
Advertising agency AdAge reported that the planned roll-out of video units had been delayed until October to allow Facebook more time to develop the new features.