In a post on MediaBistro’s PRNewser (Nov. 30, 2009), Joe Ciarallo cites a study by Sysomos that asserts that only 23% of Facebook pages have more than 1,000 fans.

On Facebook, brands and bands and other organizations can create a page account that draws fans rather than friends. Fans of a page subscribe to its news items and can post on the page.

The Wordsupply page has just joined the 95% of sites that have more than 10 fans. (Become a Wordsupply fan on Facebook—update your status and help us break 100! :o)

But even for B2C brands—which may seem more likely to draw numerous fans—it’s tough to lure Facebookers away from the comfort of their Home page news streams.

The pages with the most fans feature celebrities and universal ideas like “Flipping the Pillow Over to Get to the Cold Side,” which boasts 2.9 million fans.

But rather than be discouraged by these stats, we are intrigued. Millions of people are using Facebook, fanning pages, joining groups, reading news, and spreading the word. Whether you work as an individual or organization, offering a service or a product, you must create a page and offer your stream.

You can create a page yourself—and claim your brand name: Just go to Facebook and follow the instructions to create a page.

(And if you need help, Wordsupply is ready to start the news stream and keep it flowing!)

On Friday, May 8, Chris Hughes spoke at NYU Stern. Hughes, 25, is a cofounder of Facebook and was a driving force behind Obama’s online campaign juggernaut My.BarackObama.com.

He sat on a dais for one and amiably answered questions from Stern professor Jeffrey Carr and the audience. The luncheon was hosted by the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship and sponsored by Stern alum Norman Himelberg, of Himcor Group and Reisel Management LLC.

My chief takeaways:

• Michelle and Barack Obama are just as friendly and smart as they seem on TV.
• On election night, Chris knew Barack had won when Fox called Ohio for Obama.
• He does not foresee going into politics himself, but admires people with those skills. He noted how different political campaigns are from businesses – teams form for several months to compete for an absolute win or lose on a single day, so efforts on process improvement have a much shorter, terminal scope.
• For entrepreneurs, a focus on product is even more important than a plan’s emphasis on market size or team make-up.
• He reminded the entrepreneurs in the audience that choosing an accountant or lawyer isn’t for life - what’s important is to make that first choice.
• He sees good opportunities in location-based mobile applications; separately, he sees a need for an open source platform of social media applications that most or all social entrepreneurs would need. Imagine Obama’s site, my.barackobama.com, saved as a template or generic architecture for other social causes.
• As an Entrepreneur in Residence at General Catalyst Partners, Chris meets with entrepreneurs and other smart folks, reviewing plans and developing his own ideas. General Catalyst helped launch sites such as Kayak.com and Upromise.
• Noting what sociologists call “weak ties” (social connections that are valuable but less deep than those with one’s closest friends), Chris cited [sorry - missed the name :o) ] as a powerful app for enabling Facebook users to direct communications to the most appropriate “bucket” of friends (i.e., college chums vs. office mates).
• He also cited Facebook Connect as one of the most valuable parts of Facebook, since it saves people the trouble of filling out new profiles on other sites, makes it easier for sites to get people registered, and helps users promote the other sites as their activity is reported to their Facebook friends.
• An occasional Twitter user, he sees Twitter and other sites as part of a complementary ecosystem of sites with different audiences and uses. Going forward, these sites will evolve with more focus.
• The power of Facebook was reaffirmed to him recently. As he ended a tour of a remote village in Senegal, his guide asked if he and his friend were on Facebook. Besides making tangible the fact that Facebook has more than 200MM members worldwide, the friending made it easy for them both to get to know each other (the guide must have had a shock when he realized who Chris was :) but also extended Chris’s knowledge of and resources in Senegal. So “weak ties” can be rich and valuable.

Beyond all of this, Chris was approachable and downright friendly. He travels quite a bit, speaking with and coaching young entrepreneurs.

Cheers to Chris, the Berkley Center, and Mr. Himelberg!

Skittles.com splash/home page

Skittles stirred up quite a bit of chatter this week by outsourcing most of its Website to major social networking sites.

In a move that is presumably acceptable to Twitter, YouTube, Wikipedia, Flickr, and Facebook (even though it reminds me of framing external sites within one’s own site, a technique long frowned upon since it traps visitors), Skittles sends visitors to its discussion pages on major sites. The “Chatter” link brings a Twitter search for all entries with “Skittles” mentioned in them; the “Friends” link brings Skittles’ fan page on Facebook.

A small red Skittles dashboard hovers over the external pages, unmovable in Firefox.

I’m impressed with this campaign because with the openness of its trademark rainbow (okay, maybe that’s too generous), Skittles is encompassing (okay, maybe coopting) communities where its consumers live – rather than trying to compete with them.

True, Skittles could build an island where people would discuss Skittles – but do you think people would go there? I assume that earlier versions of the site had some community experiments … assuming those grew slowly, if at all, can we blame Skittles for embracing communities where they’ve grown organically?

The same risk of heckling is there, but it’s housed within external sites. The challenge will be for Skittles to Tweet and engage within the communities it’s embracing. It may find that islands are easier to control, but in the long run, engaging with consumers where they live is bound to increase Skittles’ share of mind.

Whether your site links to an external social network or encompasses it within a Skittles-style dashboard, your firm has to engage these communities on their own turf.

P.S.: Note that Skittles asks for your age before giving access to its dashboard – and you must accept “terms and conditions” that aren’t disclosed through a link or pop-up – just outlined in the window’s text (see the orange box in the screenshot above). Perhaps one term is to allow tracking of one’s Tweets, Facebook activity, and YouTube commenting … only Skittles knows … UPDATE: Once signed in, there’s a link to a privacy policy.