Its official, the UK has become a nation of Facebook addicts. As of July 2010, more than 26 million people from the United Kingdom now use Facebook actively. In percentage of population that is more than 42%, in front of the USA at just over 40%.

Facebook has just reached 500,000,000 active users, so currently the UK makes up just over 5% of Facebook membership compared to nearly 20% of USA Facebooker’s.

How much larger Facebook can actually grow? Well this  is another discussion entirely, but it is sure to plateau soon unless they are able to crack some otherwise untapped markets such as India and Brazil.  At first glance these look like big markets, however there are two separate problems:-

India’s population is massive 1.2 Billion, but they still have a very low internet use penetration of  6.9%, this is however an enormous amount of people still (81,000,000), and I’m sure that the people at Facebook would be happy to increase its 10.5 million users to the same levels at the UK, which would add another 20 million users to their tally.

Brazil has another problem entirely, it comes in the form of another little known (in the UK) Social Network called Orkut, owned by Google, Orkut boasts 100 million active users, with 48,000,000 of these from Brazil. This is compared to Brazils current 4.75 million Facebook users.

There are of course other markets out there, but at the moment you have to rule out China, as their Great Firewall currently blocks Facebook entirely.

One thing is for certain though, Facebook has emerged from the heady post dotcom bubble to reignite the dreams of the Web2.0 generation, and with it’s IPO scheduled for 2012, there is going to be some serious money involved.

The above information was gathered from Wikipedia, Internet World Stats and The Guardian

Social Media Pack LinkedIn Support now includes support for Sprouter

Sprouter asks entrepreneurs the question “What are you working on?” – answering this question encourages other members of the Sprouter community to offer tips, support, resources or other relevant members to connect with, all in 140 characters or less. Typical social networks allow you to connect with people you already know – whether your friends, family, or former coworkers. The idea behind Sprouter is that it’s the people you haven’t connected with yet but who share common goals and interests who can be the most valuable resources. Join the community, create a profile, and start connecting with other entrepreneurs globally – the community currently has members from all over the world, including India, Australia, Europe, and North America.

With immediate effect, Social Media Pack from Matt Porter Web Design Limited now updates Sprouter. This is a further improvement to our existing Blog Integration.

About Social Media Pack

Social Media Pack is a solution to integrate WordPress Blogs with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr and MySpace. Enabling businesses to spread the word about their products and services to millions of potential customers. In return these businesses receive “warm leads”.

Social Media Pack was devised by Matt Porter Web Design Limited.

For more information email socialmediapack@mattporter.com

Aldeburgh Museum have launched their new Online Archive powered by Social Media Pack.

Social Media Pack allows Aldeburgh Museum to syndicate their latest news and information to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and Posterous.

We look forward working with the team at Moot Hall, helping them to give more people access to their historical finds.

The Network Marketing Blog

John Passmore, regular blogger at Network Marketing Blog has completed his transfer from Blogger to Social Media Pack.

www.networkmarketingblog.org.uk, links to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo and LinkedIn. To view John’s blog, click here.

We look forward to continuing to work with John to grow his business using the power of Social Media.

EXF Fitness have launched their new blog powered by Social Media Pack.

Social Media Pack allows EXF Fitness to manage their social network connections from one place. Connecting to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Plaxo and Tumblr.

We look forward working with Charles and his team at EXF, helping them to market their business using the power of social media.

Just when you thought Facebook was simply a tool to allow you to play Mafia Wars, post pictures of family and friends or searching for long lost school chums, along came a new idea…. why not use Facebook for business?

As of 15th September 2009, Facebook now serves more than 300 million people across the world. A couple of months on, it is very likely that this figure will have overtaken the population of the United States. So, if Facebook were a country they would be the 3rd most populated on the planet!

Just think, every business has the opportunity to market themselves to more than a 5th of the world’s population, the burning question is how?

I would highly recommend that should you decide to actively market your business or products on Facebook, you consider a business account. a business account is slightly different from a personal account.

Read Facebooks terms and conditions. You really don’t want your account banned, and mark my words, Facebook will ban your account if they don’t believe you are behaving fairly.

Make sure your privacy settings are configured to ensure ‘personal information’ is kept private.

Try and integrate your existing web site with your Facebook account using Facebook Connect.

Post newsletters and company information in your profile.

Post your Facebook address in your email signature, business cards etc. There is no point going to the trouble of setting these things up unless you tell as many people as possible where to find you.

Use other social networks such as Twitter alongside your Facebook account.

And finally…. Don’t be too pushy when talking about your products and services online. Social Networks are generally free of charge sites to help you build contacts within your industry, people can just as quickly ‘unfollow‘ you if they think they are getting a ‘hard sell’.

This blog posting also appears on The Best of Ipswich

It’s been very exciting this week in Ipswich. With five new Social Media Packs, it is now clear to us that this was a product that businesses are crying out for.

So what makes the product so useful?

Social Media Pack now integrates with 11 social networks and microblogging sites.

The key to this integration is linking posts back to your blog. When you write your blog post, our system of plugins ‘fires’ that entry over to our supported social networks. Facebook for instance allows us to post the article and photographs, Twitter and Tumblr  allows for status updates. LinkedIn allows for status updates and importing of the blog in it’s entirity.

Listed below, are the Social Networks currently supported ‘out of the box’.

Twitter
LinkedIn *updated*
Facebook *updated*
Tumblr
MySpace
Plaxo
Ning *just added*
Plurk *just added*
Live Journal *just added*
Yahoo Profiles *just added*
Yahoo Meme *just added*
Posterous *BRAND NEW*

Do you think your company could benefit from entering the evolving social network market? If you think the answer is yes and you don’t want to spend hours updating multiple sites, give me a call on +44(0)1473 272002 or email matt@socialmediapack.co.uk

Development of Social Media Pack continues alongside its rapidly increasing customer base.  In order to gauge areas of further development, we are asking our Readers / Twitter Followers/ Facebook Fans to fill out our Poll in which we are asking “Which Social Network Directly Benefits Your Business”.

Please take 30 seconds to complete the poll.

Thanks in advance

Matt

Rev Percy Peabody, editor in chief of The Lower South-Borough Gazette is the latest user to utilise Social Media Pack from Matt Porter Web Design Limited.

The Lower South-Borough Gazette, is local newsletter that goes out to the local parish once a month. With the launch of their new blog, the community of Lower South-Borough and beyond, can keep up to date with the latest breaking news within the parish.

To view Lower South-Borough Gazette click here

Rev. Peabody can also be found on Facebook and Twitter

We look forward to continuing to work with Rev Peabody to grow his readership using the power of Social Media.

John Ballance, from UcallUsave has launched his new blog powered by Social Media Pack.

UcallUsave – or More Power to your Pocket, links to Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Plaxo and LinkedIn. To view UcallUsave, click here.

We look forward to continuing to work with John to grow his business using the power of Social Media.