Does your dental practice have a Facebook Page?

If so, are you leveraging your dental practice Facebook Page to attract more new dental patients?

If not, maybe now is the time to consider it as a part of your overall dental marketing plan.

With the Facebook IPO launch last Friday, Experian Hitwise, the company that measures traffic and activity by people on the Internet, released their updated U.S. data showing the impact Facebook has online with its growth over the years.

Here are 15 stats from the May 18th IPO:

1. Facebook.com received 9% of all U.S. Internet visits in April 2012.
2. Facebook.com received more than 1.6 billion visits a week and averaged more than 229 million U.S. visits a day for the year-to-date.
3. 1 in every 5 page views in the U.S. occurred on Facebook.com.
4. Facebook.com has received more than 400 billion page views this year in the U.S.
5. The average visit time on Facebook.com is 20 minutes.
6. The Facebook.com audience skews more female (56%) than male.
7. Facebook.com became the #1 ranked website in the U.S. on March 9, 2010.
8. The term ‘Facebook’ is the most searched term in the U.S. and has been for the past three years, starting the week ending July 18, 2009.
9. Facebook-related terms account for 6% of the top searched terms in the U.S. and Facebook-related terms made up 4 of the top 10 U.S. searches (among the top 100 search terms for the 4 weeks ending May 12, 2012).
10. Facebook.com users are highly loyal to the website; 96% of visitors to Facebook.com were returning (defined as visited within past 30 days) visitors in April 2012.
11. 10 states account for 52% of visits to Facebook.com – California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina based on year-to-date average.
12. The top states where users are more likely to visit Facebook.com versus the online population are: West Virginia, Kentucky, Maine, Vermont, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and Alabama based on year-to-date average.
13. The New York City DMA provides the largest volume of traffic to Facebook.com and the Charleston, WV DMA is the area where users are most likely to visit compared to the online population.
14. Facebook.com is the top social networking site in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Brazil, France, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, and Singapore markets.
15. Facebook.com is the top overall site in the U.S., Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong and Singapore. Facebook.com ranks 2nd in the U.K., Brazil, France, and Australia.

Facebook Pages have proved to be more successful for many brands over Facebook advertising.  For this reason, just before the Facebook  IPO offering GM pulled out of their Facebook ad campaign.

Facebook Pages appear to be more successful at engaging dental patients than paying for a Facebook ad. This is most likely because Facebook Pages feel more personal to the general public than Facebook ads.

The Internet Dental Alliance  has been helping dentists maximize their Facebook presence for years. IDA dental websites are more than just Facebook compatible – they’re designed to look great and attract patients within your Facebook profile.

Stop by the Facebook Marketing for Your Dental Practice Page on the IDA website today.

To view the Hitwise stats see: 15 Stats About Facebook