If you are thinking about a Facebook advertising campaign, you may want to turn your sights towards Africa. The social network has just released some stats that are pretty surprising to a lot of marketers -- one in ten Africans logs onto Facebook at least once per month.

That’s a pretty big market for advertisers, and it’s why Facebook has decided to publish the stats.

How the Site is Accessed

Additional statistics show that eighty-percent of people logging onto Facebook from Africa are using mobile devices. This is an interesting fact, since most people on the continent don’t really have smartphones (smartphones don’t usually sell in Africa). Further, the continent doesn’t really have a lot of WiFi spots either, and general Internet connectivity is low. So, how do these stats make any sense?

Africans want to be connected to the world through networks like Facebook, and those stats could also possibly show that these people will buy smartphones that are targeted to them. In short, Africa is really the place to target if you want to sell globally, and Facebook might be the perfect platform to do so. While many Africans aren’t going on websites or checking out other sites, it seems, they are spending that time to check into Facebook at least once per month.

Using these Numbers

Selling to Africa is a great idea if you run a small business. Taking out an ad on Facebook is where you want to go, too, if you are targeting Africans. In fact, Facebook advertising saw a jump in the second quarter of more than one-hundred and fifty percent where mobile advertising was concerned.

Facebook is putting so much stock in Africa that the company has told press a new Facebook office or two could be opening up on the continent in 2015, though the exact location and other information hasn’t been released yet. Why smartphone manufacturers and other companies aren’t looking into Africa further remains to be seen, but Facebook’s statistics show that there’s a definite interest in the social network, and the mobile numbers are also glaringly obvious.

Advertising Through Facebook Grows

Currently, there are more than 1.5 million advertisers using Facebook’s advertising platform. Even though Facebook is not releasing the numbers that show how much of that advertising is attributed to companies targeting Africa, the social networking company did states that Africa, the Middle East, and Europe make up thirty-percent of the company’s advertising sales.

In short, if you are thinking about targeting a global market through Facebook, Africa is where you want to look. While interest in social networks might not have been popular throughout Africa in the past, all of that is clearly changing. There are a lot of different parts of the world worth targeting if you are going to go global, and Africa is certainly not one part that you should miss. For details and further statistics, make sure to check out Facebook’s advertising page - or do some research on your own if you are considering this market.