It didn’t take long after the IPO for Facebook to make a fresh announcement about plans for developing revenue generation – and it is the move into mobile advertising.

Despite Mark Zuckerberg being described as having, “an evangelical approach to advertising,” and seeing the Facebook platform as, “a vehicle to open up communication, not to monetize”, there is no doubt that things have to change now the shareholders have more of a say.  Let’s not forget, however, the billionaire does still own over 25% of the company and more than 50% of the voting power.

US based Nanigans, a firm that specialises in the Facebook Ads API and served over 175 billion ad impressions in 2011, released new data confirming a year-on-year jump in Ad spend over the Christmas period.

Nanigans also reported a 1,600% growth in Facebook Ad spend over the past year.  Whilst this figure is not representative of Ad spend across the platform as a whole, there is still a compelling story to be told (feel free to Tweet these);

Facebook ad revenues grew from $738 million in 2009 to an estimated $3.8 billion in 2011

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Facebook ad budgets grew 109% between the 3^rd and 4^th quarter of 2011.  This is compared with just 27% growth in paid search spend in the same period

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The number of view of Facebook Ads grew 47% in the last quarter of 2011

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Click rates have risen 27% since the move to GraphEdge through more effective targeting

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Come March,  Facebook will introduce ‘featured stories’ into users’ mobile news feed as the first step on the mobile advertising ladder.  With all of this in mind, and with Facebook’s growing number of mobile users, (currently at around 425 million), don’t be surprised if we are looking at some exponential growth over the next couple of years from the platform’s mobile Ad revenues.

Especially as there is no mobile advertising platform…yet…

Research from Kenshoo Social, eMarketer Inc and Nanigans

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Facebook is expected to reach the very impressive 500 million user milestone this week. Putting this half billion member mark in perspective, The Washington Post reports that, “the population inhabiting Facebook now equals that of the United States, Japan and Germany combined. Or, two Mexicos and a Brazil.”

Facebook reached 400 million users five months ago. This time last year, it had just reached 200 million, and eight months before that it was at 100 million. Facebook has certainly come a long way since its launch in February 2004 and has become the most popular social site on the web. It poses the question, how on earth did we communicate with our friend’s before Facebook? Did we actually pick up the phone and speak to them?!

Plus it’s not only consumers reaping the rewards of this social networking phenomenon, but it’s clear that brands can also benefit. Many use Facebook as a channel for developing direct relationships with customers and as a platform for sharing and discovering rich content.

But I digress….

In light of this impending milestone, one of the Facebook marketing gurus said that the site plans to celebrate it  with ‘Facebook Stories’, a collection of real-life memories from Facebook users about how the social networking site has impacted their lives. She said that while previous announcements of this nature have been about the numbers, this time the company wants it to be all about the users.

Users could submit their yarn in 420 characters or less. The stories will then be organised into a ‘visual memorial’ by geographical location and by themes such as “finding love,” “coping with grief” and “natural disasters.”

Facebook has already posted a form through which you can submit your own story. If your story becomes popular — that is, if it gets more “Likes” than most — it could be featured among other popular stories.

Got any memories to share…?

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