Facebook announced on Thursday that it has surpassed the 1 billion-user mark, and the company unveiled a new television commercial to commemorate the milestone. Since its launch in 2004, Facebook has undergone a series of transformations, but the goal of helping people connect continues to drive innovation from the company.
For marketers, 2012 has been a good year for social media marketing on the platform as the company released new features and capability aimed at improving delivery of relevant content to fans. Meanwhile, consumer growth has continued with users from around the world relying on the platform to keep in touch with friends, meet new people and learn more about businesses.
While reaching 1 billion users isn’t a surprise given Facebook’s rate of growth, it represents a benchmark for the social platform. One of every seven people in the world use Facebook, and Brafton highlighted data from Experian earlier this year that found Facebook accounts for nearly 10 percent of all American web traffic.
In a blog post discussing the milestone, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said “Helping a billion people connect is amazing, humbling and by far the thing I am most proud of in my life.
“I am committed to working every day to make Facebook better for you, and hopefully together one day we will be able to connect the rest of the world too.”
According to comScore’s recent top 50 web properties report, Facebook ranks fourth behind various Google-, Microsoft- and Yahoo-owned domains, with more than 152 million unique visitors in the U.S.
