Last week, LinkedIn went public and its shares are now trading at a level that values the company at nearly $9bn. This is 24 times its projected 2011 revenue. Applying the same multiplier to the much bigger Facebook values the latter at close to $100bn, more than McDonalds ($85bn) and nearly twice that of Ford.

So why is Facebook thought to be worth so much?

Facebook was founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, who still runs the company. It grew rapidly and is now the most visited website in the world, ahead even of Google. But most of its users have only a dim idea of its huge range of activities and products.

I speak to many people here on the Riviera and elsewhere and it's quite evident that the social media phenomenon is moving much faster than most of us are able to keep up with. We all hear the scare stories about users' accounts being hacked and their personal details stolen and this paints a picture of Facebook as an entity with only one purpose, being to exchange personal information for mainly trivial social use. But this is a very outdated view, and anyone who thinks Facebook can be ignored or has no relevance to themselves might be missing a very big opportunity.

Statistics

• Facebook has nearly 700 million users, that's one in 13 of the world's population.
• Half of 18-34 year olds check Facebook when they wake up, with 28% doing so before even getting out of bed.
• Over the 2010/2011 New Year weekend, users uploaded 750 million photographs.
• Over 30% of Facebook users are over 35.

The top 5 countries are:

1. USA
2. Indonesia
3. UK
4. Turkey
5. India

with France and Italy also in the top ten.

The amount of personal information all this represents is truly vast. Of course it's unwise to open yourself up totally to all comers, but the Web has always let you do this, long before Facebook came on the scene. It's important that people - particularly young people - be warned of the dangers, but if you adopt sensible practices it's no more or less of a threat to your well-being than any other website. Simply stated, when you give out personal information ask yourself if publication is truly necessary and that you really want people to know it.

The value attached to Facebook is in this data, most of which is of a non-controversial nature. For example, it does little harm to reveal your birthday, and little more to include your year of birth. But with this information Facebook can gather demographic statistics about how people of a given age use social media, look at adverts, upload music and so on. Even if your personal details aren't revealed, this information is of great use to marketers, who have their own demographic information. Your bank knows your age, so if Facebook does too they might discover from your activity that people of your age tend to like music in the style of Bruce Springsteen. Putting the two together is what results in offers appearing by email that are sometimes surprisingly well targeted to your particular interests.

Facebook Pages

As well as the standard Facebook account there are a whole raft of other features, the most notable being Pages, which started life as Fan Pages devoted to promoting idols of one kind or another. Companies world-wide are creating and using Pages alongside their websites (and sometimes instead of) to promote themselves and interact with their customers. A Facebook Page is part blog, part website and part chatroom, and since they are (currently) free it's foolish to ignore them out of an outdated belief that Facebook is only for teenagers and weirdos.

The top ten online brands are:

1. Coca-Cola (28.9 M fans)
2. Disney (24.7 M fans)
3. Starbucks (22.6 M fans)
4. Oreo (20.4 M fans)
5. Red Bull (19.6 M fans)
6. Converse All-Star (18.7 M fans)
7. Converse (17.7 M fans)
8. Skittles (14.6 M fans)
9. PlayStation (15.2 M fans)
10. ITunes (15.1 M fans)

Because Pages are part of the overall Facebook structure it's quite easy to get people to see them, simply by putting posts on your own Wall and (maybe) on your friends' Walls too, though if you overdo this you'll soon find yourself without friends. If people like your Page they'll click the Like button and become a fan, which then means that any new posts you put on the Page will appear on their Walls without them even visiting your Page. This builds you a contact/mailing list that's far superior to just taking names out of the telephone directory, and they've all indicated their willingness for you to sell them your brand. How you then do this is up to you.

This article was written by Riviera Local, a Riviera-based free listings website where you'll find more information about Facebook Pages. If you have a company Page you can list it at no cost with us; if you don't perhaps it's time to consider making one. If you're unable to do it yourself you can ask us to help.