Facebook is a giant in the world of marketing, both now and in the foreseeable future.

To give you some perspective, here are some business Facebook statistics, current up to Mach 2017 unless otherwise noted:

Facebook Profile and Page Statistics

• Facebook has almost 2 billion users (1.87 billion as of January 2017) and every second, 6 new user accounts are created
• Of those, 83 million profiles are fake
• As of September 2016, there are 60 million business pages
• Those pages are visited by 1 billion people monthly
• As of Spring 2015, 41% of all US based small businesses have Facebook pages
• At the same time, 84.7% of all US companies with 100+ employees have Facebook pages

Facebook Usage Statistics

• Out of all internet page views in the United States, more than 20% of them are Facebook views
• Every day, 1.15 billion people access Facebook on a mobile device
• As of 2013, 4.75 billion pieces of content are shared each and every day
• There are 510,000 comments, 293,000 status updates, and 136,000 photo uploads every minute
• Facebook traffic is highest mid-week from 1PM to 3PM (in each time zone)
• Facebook engagement is highest on Thursdays and Fridays around 7 PM (in each time zone)

Those are some big numbers.

Of course, as interesting as one might find these statistics, they’re just numbers…unless you know what to do with this information.

What This All Means For Your Business

Add up all those very large numbers, and there’s only one conclusion to draw:

Your business can’t afford to ignore Facebook.

Facebook is gargantuan, powerful, and only getting better at creating targeted, efficient, cost effective marketing tools.

This is what marketers have been reaching towards for decades – the ability to reach a massive amount of people in a very personalized way. Entrepreneurs have never in history had so much capability on so little a budget.

It’s marketing 101: go where your customers are.

Facebook’s marketing tools and targeting capabilities get cooler and more mind-blowingly effective every day. Have you met Pixel?

Usage continues to steadily increase, and if you’re not already leveraging some of that momentum, your business is falling behind.

Then again, with its explosive popularity and proven staying power, brands on Facebook need to keep this in mind, too:

It’s Time to Step Up Your Facebook Marketing Game

Having a Facebook page is no longer a novelty.

As more businesses and entrepreneurs recognized the trend and jumped in, Facebook became increasingly flooded with marketing content. Mediocre marketers don’t get traction in a competitive landscape, so, just as in all market trends, it takes more skill, strategy, and effort to stand out.

Attention is the currency of advertising.

Brands buy television and radio ads, billboards, magazine spreads, and old school internet popups because they’re trying to get your attention.

Think about this:

Imagine you’re at a low-key cocktail party with your friends. The music is low, so it’s pretty quiet in the room.

Then, somebody across the room says your name.

Odds are, your attention is going to snap immediately to the person who called you, right?

Now, picture another party, but this time, it’s being thrown in your honor. Everyone wants to talk to you.

Music pounds through the speakers, people surround you and shout to be heard over the bass, and the same person across the room says your name.

Would you even notice?

Right now, Facebook is like that second party.

There are lots of marketers trying to get your attention, and most of them are doing the same things as each other at about the same skill level.

The room is full of noise, so to speak, and if you want to be heard, you’re either going to have to say or do something that other people aren’t, or you’ll need to be far more tenacious and consistent than everyone else.

But there’s something really cool about these new Facebook challenges:

They’re new opportunities to come up with something really cool, and the best companies and marketers are doing just that.

There’s more progress and innovation in marketing now than there ever has been.

Are you one of the innovators?