You’re probably not surprised to know that Facebook is one of the top 10 sites in the world or that the average user has 130 friends. But some stats reported by Jessica Northey of Social Media Today should get the attention of anyone that is not taking full advantage of the power of Facebook for their business. These stats don’t just remind us of the power of Facebook, they give us better insight into user behavior that can help us make improvements on what we may already be using from the social networking giant.

Here are some of the stats that most caught my attention:

• The average media site integrated with Facebook has seen a 300% increase in referral traffic.
• People who sign in with Facebook at The Huffington Post view 22% more pages and spend 8 minutes longer than the average reader.
• Outdoor sporting goods retailer Giantnerd.com saw a 100% increase revenue from Facebook within two weeks of adding the Like button.
• ShoeDazzle also lets people login to its site using Facebook, and Facebook-connected users were 50% more likely to make repeat purchases every month than average shoppers. 

Also revealed from Facebook is how to get more Likes:

• Versions that show thumbnails of friends are used.
• They allow people to add comments.
• If they appear at both the top and bottom of articles.
• If they appear near visual content like videos or graphics.

Jessica does remind us that these numbers come from Facebook so…let’s look at some data from a third party. Recently posted on The Next Web are some stats that tell us that although Facebook is of the top drivers for traffic, it is not the top one. They report that of five of the top 25 websites studied, Facebook was the second or third biggest driver of traffic.

 “An average of 40% of the traffic to the top 25 news websites arrives from outside referrals, the study found, with Google Search the single biggest driver, accounting for 30% of all traffic.”

Just like SEO (search engine optimization) is not something you do once to your website and then forget about it, Facebook integration should be part of a continued effort to increase visibility to your business.

What can you do to improve the use of Facebook as a traffic driver?