A new study measuring Facebook trends among various US nonprofits - including the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, AARP, US Fund for UNICEF, and the Humane Society of the United States - revealed that animals are at the top of the food chain among Facebook's nonprofit fan pages.

Overall, Facebook audience growth among nonprofits soared 70% last year, but nonprofits in the wildlife and animal welfare sector reported on average that they had 129% more fans by the end of 2011 than the beginning.

Puppy photos perform

 "Never underestimate the power of a puppy photo," said Sarah DiJulio of M+R Strategic Services. "Even while reports show people reducing their number of friends on Facebook, we saw an explosion of people following all types of nonprofits they care about in 2011."

Other results of the Benchmarks Extra: Facebook study conducted by M+R Strategic Services and NTEN include:

• For every 1,000 Facebook fan page users, on average there were 197 people each day - fans or not - who came across content associated with the nonprofit's page.
• Viral Facebook activity accounted for 32% of a fan page's overall daily total reach, meaning that about one in three people saw an organization's content because a friend created a story about the fan page.
• In 2011, monthly fan page churn - the rate at which followers become unreachable in a month - was low, at 0.5%.

"We're moving beyond the ‘try it and see what happens' stage of social media usage and into the data-driven execution of campaigns and strategies stage," said NTEN executive director Holly Ross. "Resources like this are helping nonprofits get to that stage."

To read the full study, visit M+R's Facebook page. You can download this year's eNonprofit Benchmarks Study and last year's Benchmarks Extra: Facebook report at www.e-benchmarksstudy.com.