Facebook Bangs Marketing Drum With Mobile User Growth

Tom Jowitt,
Facebook, mobile © Annette Shaff Shutterstock 2012

Facebook is talking up its reach on mobile devices as Brits head away on their annual holidays

Facebook has boasted about a big jump in mobile usage across the UK, suggesting the summer months see members using their smartphones more for social networking.

The latest stats from Facebook show it continues to be widely accessed whilst people are away. It said users open the Facebook mobile app 10 to 15 times per day while sharing 4.75 billion content items daily (as of May 2013).

Marketing Opportunity

The number of users accessing Facebook in June via their mobile phones jumped around 22 percent year-on-year in the UK (18 percent in the United States), and the Facebook mobile app is one of the most used mobile apps – judging by the time spent on it.

laptop beach, remote working holiday © Sergey Peterman Shutterstock

The social networking giant also said that a staggering 751 million people are using Facebook on mobile overall, up 54 percent versus last year. It claimed 82 percent of its monthly active users are outside the US and Canada.

Back in March this year, 665 million people accessed Facebook each day on average, up 26 percent year-over-year. That represented 60 percent of the 1.11 billion people who used Facebook during the month.

Facebook believes its popularity comes as people “choose to proactively to engage with Facebook, in unprecedented numbers, while disengaged from TV in particular.”

As of May, Facebook claimed there are around 4.75 billion content items shared daily and 4.5 billion likes. It also said that more than 350 million photos are uploaded per day on average to Facebook, and that more than 10 billion messages are sent each day in total on Facebook.

Facebook is keen to show its mobile app is an ideal marketing tool, whilst hoping to counter growing reports of ‘Facebook fatigue’ and falling user numbers.

A YouGov survey in May found that Facebook usage in the UK had dropped by nine percent since this time last year, due to user irritation with advertising.

Likewise, in February a report from Pew Research highlighted the Facebook fatigue issue, after it found 61 percent of current Facebook users had voluntarily taken a break from using Facebook for a period of several weeks or more. It also found a fifth of online adults who do not currently use Facebook say they once used the site, but no longer do so.

Life’s A Beach

But Facebook insisted that its customer numbers are growing, pointing to the healthy uptake of mobile usage. It apparently looked at where people are most likely to be using Facebook on their phones this summer. It said that top 10 most ‘checked-in’ beaches in the UK are:

  • Bournemouth Beach
  • Pleasure Beach Resort
  • Weymouth Beach
  • Blackpool Beach
  • Sandbanks Beach
  • Fistral Beach
  • West Wittering Beach
  • Southport Beach
  • Yarmouth Seafront
  • Woolacombe Beach

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