Sorry to get you excited. I have no cool way to tie Harry Caray into an advertising blog post. Don’t get me wrong. I really think it could be done. Harry was on the mind as I was creating a Facebook Fan Page for Westergaard Advertising (Fan Page = an FB page for a brand to encourage user engagement with said brand). I found myself at the computer slurring in my best Will Ferrell/Harry voice, “There’s a fan!” And besides, what can I say about Facebook that you don’t already know? Some quick takeaways:

• Today there are more than 150 million active users.
• Though the under 30 bracket makes up the largest percentage of current users, the fastest growing segment are those over 30.
• The average user has 120 friends on the site.
• More than 3 billion minutes are spent on Facebook each day (worldwide).
• More than 15 million users update their statuses at least once each day.
• More than 3.5 million users become fans of pages each day.
• Facebook offers several levels of advanced targeting for marketers to utilize.
• It’s another Web 2.0 touchpoint for your brand that features people having fun, catching up, and sharing — a very casual time to offer up a relevant message. (Please note, I said relevant.)

So if you are already on “the Face” we’d love you to be a fan. Just login and search for ‘Westergaard Advertisng’ or simply follow this link. Do you have a Fan Page for your organization? We’d love to know about it? What kind of conversations are your fans having? If you aren’t on Facebook yet — give it a try now. You owe it to yourself to see what the buzz is about. It’s Friday! Catching up on social media is ‘research’ anyway, right? Not a waste of time. Cheers.

Data source: Facebook Press Room