So far it’s been a very good year for Facebook. The share price is up, Instagram keeps growing, WhatsApp is now part of the family and video ads are rolling out.

We thought it timely to take a closer look into the incredible, apparently inexorable, rise of Mark Zuckerberg's social network.

Sky’s the limit

There are now 1.31 billion monthly active Facebook users, equal to the population of China. That’s an increase of 22 per cent since 2012.

Engagement

And these users are active, with 48 per cent logging into Facebook every day and spending an average of 18 minutes per day on the network.

For the record, there are an estimated 81 million fake Facebook profiles.

Friends

The average Facebook user has 130 friends, and is connected to over 80 Facebook Pages.

Almost half of all users aged 18 – 34 yeard old check Facebook as soon as they wake up.

Global reach

Facebook is not only the biggest platform, it’s also the most global.

Facebook is available in 70 languages, while 75 per cent of the platform’s users reside outside the US.

20 minutes on Facebook

Every 20 minutes on Facebook there are 1 million links shared, 2 million friend requests and 3 million messages sent.

However all that content makes cut-through more challenging. It's now estimated that just six per cent of organic (as opposed to Promoted) posts reach fan bases.

Employees

The Facebook empire is still modestly sized and powered by just over 4000 employees.

In 2012 Facebook’s revenue was US$5.09 billion. In 2013 that figure jumped to US$6.15 billion.

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