Facebook (News - Alert) is widely recognized as the world’s social media giant with over 800 million people, so if you would think these numbers would translate into great marketing potential for companies, think again.

A recent study from the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute found that only 1 percent of a brand’s Facebook fans actually engage with it.

Ehrenberg-Bass Institute is a research firm based in Australia that provides companies useful information about how to maximize the return from marketing activities and provides help to grow their brands. Large enterprises such as, Procter & Gamble and Coca-Cola and other major advertisers are part of the firm’s supporters, according to Adage.

The study was conducted over a six-week period last October as researchers for the institute measured Facebook’s own metric, “People Talking About This,” to see the fan growth in the top 200 brands on the social media site.

“People Talking About This,” is a metric system that Facebook introduced to companies to help them figure out the running count of interactions that include likes, posts, comments, tags and shares on their page.

As reported by Adage, however, if you subtract new likes and isolate for more engaged forms of interaction, you’re left with an even smaller number of fans; .45 percent. Essentially, less than half a percent of people who “Like” a brand’s Facebook page actually try to engage with it and create content around it.

This may prove to be worrisome for some companies, but Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, says they should not think about it too much.

“People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can’t do,” said Nelson-Field. “Facebook doesn’t really differ from mass media. It’s great to get decent reach, but to change the way people interact with a brand overnight is just unrealistic.”

Nelson-Field also went onto say that brand’s need to remember that marketing on Facebook is still relatively young. Although the numbers aren’t there, it doesn’t mean it’s still not a great way to reach your heavy buyers.

In fact, Nelson-Field suggests to companies that instead of “putting a disproportionate amount of effort into engagement and strategies to get people to talk about a brand, [when] you should be spending more time getting more light buyers.”

 Want to learn more about the latest in communications and technology? Then be sure to attend ITEXPO East 2012, taking place Jan. 31-Feb. 3 2012, in Miami, FL. ITEXPO (News - Alert) offers an educational program to help corporate decision makers select the right IP-based voice, video, fax and unified communications solutions to improve their operations. It's also where service providers learn how to profitably roll out the services their subscribers are clamoring for – and where resellers can learn about new growth opportunities. For more information on registering for ITEXPO registration, click here.

Stay in touch with everything happening at ITEXPO. Follow us on Twitter.