In our last blog on Facebook’s newest Page update (March 30, 2012), we discussed general user-perception of the change. Today, we’re looking closer at the companies Facebook features on their Introduction to the New Pages.
It should be safe to assume that these nine “featured” companies are doing something right in order to represent Facebook’s New Page campaign, but before we dig into exactly what these companies have done to adapt to the big Facebook Page “Timeline” update, let’s take a look at how they are doing with total “like” counts, who’s talking, and engagement ratio. For clarification, remember that when Facebook counts those “talking” about your page, it tallies those sharing, liking posts, commenting, and engaging or interacting in any way at all…it’s not just who is actually “talking.”
What is most telling about looking at the metrics for the Facebook Nine, as we’ll call them, is that there doesn’t seem to be any predictable way of guessing which industry should have the best engagement (based on brand/service/product concept alone).
American Express has a total of 2,445,263 likes and 13,756 are talking, which gives them an engagement ratio of .56 (that means less than 1 person of every 100 are engaged). Captain Morgan USA has a total of 1,054,568 likes and 9,434 are talking, which puts them at .89, slightly higher than AE. Does that mean people like talking about drinking rum and playing pirate more than spending someone else’s money on the plastic express? Well, maybe not, because Ben & Jerry’s has 3,842, 862 likes with 22,863 are talking and they only clock in at .59. Rich, creamy ice cream should be way better than debt and hangovers, right?!
But while theme-centric brands/products/activities, should reflect engagement rates based on their inherent “fun factor”, the engagement numbers we’re seeing are all over the place. Take Jive Time Records’ 5,235 likes and 353 talking, which puts them at 6.74; Johnson’s Baby has 781,676 likes and 26,366 talking , yielding a 3.37; The Amazing Spider-Man is at 797,843 likes and 58,879 talking, equaling a whopping 7.37; Roman Salon, with 1,559 likes and 27 talking blows in with a 1.73; Nike is a 1.55 ( 8,884,875 likes / 137, 752 talking); and finally, Manchester United has 24,228,429 likes / 843, 661 talking equaling a 3.48 engagement ratio–all of which further demonstrates the wild seemingly unpredictable swing from .5 to a stratospheric 7.37 in engagement ratios. For those who don’t know, most social media marketers are pleased with a .5-1% engagement ratio, so most the these businesses are out-performing the crowds.
But, again, we really need to look at a couple of these pages to understand “the why” behind the ratio. What’s already apparent is that it doesn’t just matter who you are or what you sell–it’s about what you’re doing on Facebook that drives engagement rates!
In the next blog, we’ll do that, and hopefully sign off next time with a couple of strategies you can deploy for your business’s new Timeline Page.
