Think Facebook is a waste? Check out these numbers

Many business people and marketers have come to the considered conclusion that Facebook is a teenage wasteland, unfit for promoting one’s career or company with “business” or “fan” pages.

For most professionals and companies, that’s exactly right.

But there are many exceptions, especially among companies with powerful brand names. Some companies have become so successful on the 500-million-member social media site they have a bigger and more meaningful following on Facebook than on their own websites.

That according to an article in the Aug. 23 edition of Advertising Age magazine.

“For many marketers, their Facebook fan bases have become their largest web presence, outstripping brand sites or e-mail programs either because a brand’s traditional web-based ‘owned media’ is atrophying or because more consumers are migrating to social media,” the magazine reported.

Take a look at the number of Facebook fans that have been racked up by these big-name brands:

• Starbucks: 12.7 million, and adding 79,000 per day
• Coca-Cola: 10.7 million, and adding 96,000 per day
• Oreo: 8.7 million, and adding 72,000 per day
• Skittles: 8.6 million, and adding 51,000 per day
• Red Bull: 7.8 million, and adding 41,000 per day
• Victoria’s Secret: 4.6 million, and adding 33,000 per day
• Ferrero Rocher: 3.7 million, and adding 30,000 per day

By way of comparison, the Advertising Age article points out that Coca-Cola’s 10.7 million Facebook fans “certainly trumps U.S. unique visitors to Coke’s brand website, which fell by more than 40 percent to 242,000 in July compared to a year ago.”

The rise in Facebook fans does not necessarily correspond to a drop in a company’s website traffic. Advertising Age points to Starbucks and Walgreens as examples of Facebook powerhouses whose web traffic has remained steady.

Then again, if your website is turning anorexic while your Facebook fan page fattens up, one probably has good reason for worry. What happens when Facebook finally goes out of vogue and heads the way of MySpace?

You’ll wish all that time and money you invested in Facebook was instead concentrated on the site you own and control – and is less vulnerable to the whims of Americans addled by attention deficit disorder.

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