Its been a heck of a year for Facebook.
They started with 350 million users. By March they passed Google for weekly share of visits. By June they passed the 500 million user mark. Zuckerberg gets named Man of the Year last week and to top it all off theyre the odds-on favourite to win the Best Picture Oscar.
So I thought it only appropriate to wrap up the year by nominating my favourite Facebook pages for best of 2010.
Best Performance by an Equestrian.
Horse Dentist Dr. Geoff Tucker showed us the power of Facebook in connecting smaller businesses with their customers on a more personal level. He generated over 100 leads and now has over 4,000 friends.
Best Performance in a Redeeming Role
Now granted its ice cream but Cold Stone Creamerys Facebook coupons enjoyed a 14% redemption vs. .02% with their traditional off-line method of distribution at a cost per redemption of 39 cents vs. $3.60. Sweet.
Best Short Subject
Mocks is a sock for your iPod and theyre a great example to keep around when you wanted to be inspired to create more engagement. CEO Lara Solomon says she uses social media to engage customers in the old sense of the word. This then means that they buy more and tell their friends. It must be working. Theyve doubled online sales and have over 16,000 fans.
Best Supported Actresses
To be successful in social media you have to tap into the passion of the business and Victorias Secret has transferred the sexy sell that works for them so well offline onto their Facebook page weaving in star power, trivia, special events and calendar relevance to keep their customers engaged.
Best Foreign Language Performance
70% of Facebook fans are outside of the U.S. and when it comes to worldwide celebrity engagement few do it better than Cristiano Ronaldo. He regularly places in the top 30 pages with over 16 million followers and he creates great like spikes by not being all me-me-me.
In Memoriam Honour Roll
Michael Jacksons Facebook page picked up 335,061 new fans last week.
And My Best Page Goes To
Starbucks. Im getting tired of liking these guys so much but 18,856,485 fans cant be wrong and a breakdown of their posts alongside research as to why people follow brands shows how strongly they execute.
Of course were not all celebrities or as fan-friendly as ice cream and coffee so, tell us, which Facebook pages did you find inspired you the most during the past year?