eConsultancy have launched a guide on how to launch amazing Facebook pages – the free excerpts include a few useful stats too…

2. Facebook statistics

Facebook is huge. Here are some useful numbers to help you understand the scale of the opportunity, while hopefully convincing the boss that this is something worth spending a little time and money on.

2.1. Facebook usage

 Facebook has more than 500 million active global users. [Source: Facebook Pressroom, January 2011].

2.2. Facebook pages

 The average user is connected to 60 pages, groups and events [Source: Econsultancy blog, July 2010].

 Purpose-built Facebook pages have created more than 5.3 billion fans. [Source: Facebook, January, 2010].

2.3. Facebook in business

 65% of companies use Facebook as part of their marketing strategy. [Source: Econsultancy / Guava UK Search Engine Marketing Benchmark Report, April 2009].

 More than 700,000 local businesses have active pages on Facebook. [Source: Facebook, January, 2010].

“ADVERTISING IS BASED ON ONE THING:

HAPPINESS.

AND DO YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPINESS IS?

HAPPINESS IS THE SMELL OF A NEW CAR.

IT’S FREEDOM FROM FEAR.

IT’S A BILLBOARD ON THE SIDE OF A ROAD THAT SCREAMS WITH REASSURANCE THAT WHATEVER YOU’RE DOING IS OK.

You ARE OK.“

DON DRAPER

Love this… At the same time as launching a cool “Beetle” spot, Deutsch LA have popped out a beautifully produced piece of entertainment highlighting a simple feature on the car. There’ll be people who proclaim ‘remote start’ to be nothing new – it isn’t (I wish I could remember the movie with the guy saved by remote start when his car blows up so it would be a good reference point – maybe it was Pelican Brief?!?) – but that’s not the point. Simple product feature made awesomely cool. Family car made hero. Family poignancy without any hint of cheesy aftertaste. It’s hard to achieve that, but this does. It’s already got well over a million views in one day. It’s great.

I’d love to get a transcript of this to dig out all the facts, but great little video from Time Videos. Click the link to see a better quality version live on Time’s site, but the fuzzy version is on YouTube…

The prelude to the next wave of campaign… introduced here.

Topical because of the movie “The Social Network” maybe, but lots on history of social networking surfacing at the moment.

First, and I missed it yesterday, but it’s coming soon on iPlayer… A Radio 4 series on “The Secret History of Social Networks“.

Next up, another infographic from the onlineschools.org collection – this time on the History of Social Networking – which is trending high on Mashable.

And, finally, the movie itself… A superb, deep, explorative look at the story behind one of the biggest changes in our lives.

Which makes you think… Not least how great Aaron Sorkin is. Download the entire screenplay here and enjoy some of the best writing out there.

MARK

‘Cause theFacebook is cool. If we start

installing pop-ups for Mountain Dew it’s

not gonna–

EDUARDO

Well I wasn’t thinking Mountain Dew but

at some point–and I’m talking as the

business end of the company–the site–

MARK

We don’t even know what it is yet. We

don’t know what it is, we don’t know what

it can be, we don’t know what it will be.

We know that it’s cool, that is a

priceless asset I’m not giving it up.

EDUARDO

When will it be finished?

MARK

It won’t be finished, that’s the point.

The way fashion’s never finished.

EDUARDO

What?

69.

MARK

Fashion. Fashion is never finished.

EDUARDO

You’re talking about fashion? Really?

You?

MARK

I’m talking about the idea of it and I’m

saying it’s never finished.

I don’t know what’s worse…. the Ferrari built to an old BMW design, or the typo.

We all make mistakes, but it’s an abject and public lesson in the importance of constantly checking your work, your words, your grammar and your spelling. If you think it doesn’t matter because you’re writing a blog, an email, etc… then you’ll probably just become immune to errors. And, sooner or later, it WILL matter. But you won’t be looking out for the mistakes any more.

Dictionary.com is free. Spell-check is built into almost everything. Learn the difference between their and there, your and you’re. Care about the words you use, the construction, the flow. Check what you’ve written. Have a genuine fear of imperfection. After all, it’s what helps deliver great design and great engineering… don’t let it be lost from communications.

I’ll stop ranting now (not least for fear that I’ll find the rest of this blog is ridden with typos and grammatical errors!).

You’ll get this from numerous sources, but just in case you haven’t seen it yet, there’s huge comedy to be had flicking through these.