Digital Marketing Power

Dammit. It’s happened again. In fact, it’s happened ever since you created your Facebook Fan Page – and you’re mighty tired of it, aren’t you? Tired of wasting your precious time carefully crafting status updates that don’t get read. Tired of eagerly anticipating all the likes and comments your latest post is going to get only to be met with a whole lotta nothing.

And the funny cat memes you steal from Google Images to go with your updates? No one is liking those either – and everyone likes cat memes.

So what the hell is going on?

You've probably thought about deleting your Facebook account before, but for one reason or another you've been unable to commit. Maybe you're applying for a job and don't want your future employer to see pics of you at college frat parties. Or maybe you just can't stand one more depressing status update.

If you're serious this time about deleting your Facebook account, escaping the social networking giant can be a lot more complicated than you would think. There are necessary steps you should take before pressing that delete account button.

Remember, deleting your account is very different from deactivating your account. You can deactivate your account at any point, and when you want to return everything is as you left it. While your account is deactivated, people on Facebook will not be able to search for you, but some information like messages you've sent may still be visible to others.

If you permanently delete your account, you will not be able to regain access to your account again, ever. Most personally identifiable information is removed from the Facebook database, but some may remain such as your name if you sent a message to someone else.

If you're planning to delete your Facebook account permanently, read on to learn about what steps you should take first.

Facebook has become an indispensable tool for business. Why? Yes, because there are a billion people interacting there. Also because your friends, relatives, and most importantly, your competition, are interacting--creating great relationships and building trust--in this global community.

Did you know that Facebook is primarily a consumer-driven community? And most of them are savvy enough to smell (and block) a disingenuous marketer a mile away. We asked author and speaker Brian Basilico for his top five Facebook "don'ts" for your business. What are your pet peeves? Go ahead, add to our list!

Facebook is the most popular mobile app in the U.S. in terms of unique users — at least for now.

The signature Facebook app passed Google Maps in October of last year to become the most used mobile app in the U.S. and held onto the top spot through the end of the year, according to data released Wednesday by comScore Mobile Metrix.

Facebook's app enjoyed strong growth in 2012 with 85.5 million monthly unique users in the U.S. in December across iOS, Android and RIM's mobile platforms, up from just under 65 million in March, when comScore first started tracking mobile app data. (In October, Facebook reported 604 million monthly mobile users worldwide.) Google Maps, on the other hand, saw its active user numbers dip from about 80 million in August and September to a little more than 70 million in October after it was removed as a default app on iOS 6.

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