Facebook Fan Behavior Study: What Facebook Likes & Interaction Rates to Expect
For years social media experts have opined on the virtues of “E-N-G-A-G-I-N-G” on Facebook, but what they don’t tell you is how much interaction you can expect. Many novices are so excited about getting on Facebook and interacting they just assume fans who “like” a page will naturally want to interact. It’s the reason they are on Facebook right? Social media experts have been so hyper-focused on attracting new fans to Facebook Pages that oftentimes a discussion around what Fans usually do once they’ve liked a Page is ignored. Why? From our findings, it’s because Fans usually do NOTHING-well, at least not much in the way of Page interaction. That doesn’t mean they’re not watching: From the Facebook Insights, it’s apparent that impressions are somewhat proportional to the number of Fans a Page has.
Regarding interaction rates: It’s easy to spot check on the rate of Facebook page feedback for yourself. Let’s start with a look at the big box stores to see what kind of response rates they’re getting:
On the above screenshot from Walmart’s Facebook Page, 2,221 people have liked the post and 254 have commented. Out of the 6,913,708 total fans that means the engagement percentage for Likes is 0.032. For comments, it’s a measly .0037+-. To put this into context, at least 69,137 Fans would need to engage to equal a 1% engagement rate.
In contrast, the above screenshot of a post from Tupelo Honey ( a popular local eatery in Asheville NC) shows 10 likes and 21 comments. Out of 4361 total fans, the engagement percentage for Likes is 0.2293 and for comments it’s .481. To put this into context, at least 43 Fans would need to engage to equal a 1% engagement rate.
In both cases the engagement rate for both Likes and comments are less than 1%. The post samples we shared via screenshot contained what we would consider engaging posts too! So at the high end, social media managers shouldn’t expect to see more than a 1% engagement rate. Of course two sample posts are no where near representative of what’s out there. And there are anomalies and exceptions. For example, in the first post we see more Likes than comments, which is more the norm. But in the second post we see more comments, which, if you look back at the Tupelo Facebook Page or other Pages, isn’t the norm. In the dozens of other Page stats. we’ve seen similarly low engagement rates.
What have you seen? Even if it’s relatively the same thing, please take a minute to share your opinion with our readers.
We manage social media accounts on behalf of our clients and across the board, 1% or lower is the engagement we see on day to day posts. Actually, getting to the magic 1% is our target! You’re right, it’s not that fans aren’t seeing your content, they’re just not making that step and writing their thoughts. Very few people will do so, it’s only those extremely sociable people who will - similarly how 99% of all Tweets come from 1% of the Twitter population, most Twitterers just watch. Sometimes a video that we pop up will get more views but less comments or likes, but we can only assume from the impressions figure of how many people read a post. We see more interaction with images and videos than just plain text or links, even if they’re questions begging for an answer!
Thanks for sharing your findings Holly!
Regarding (Facebook) impressions: I question whether they’re accurate or not:
Though impression feedback varies from post to post, there is no indication from the amount of link click throughs, or engagement rates that it matters whether there were 800 or 2000 impressions..PLUS how many of those impressions are force counted when it’s the case that fans aren’t reading the target post at all? My guess is most, for even the most generic posts still get hefty impression counts, and when have you even seen a REALLY low number indicating a poor post. With all that said, impression rates don’t seem to really indicate anything other than the fact that users haven’t hidden the Page from their wall…and even then, they’re not specific enough to make a difference in marketing decision strategy.
Hopefully Facebook will soon realize that businesses need more than spotty “impression” metrics to justify the time spent marketing on Facebook.
At http://www.facebook.com/johnnylewssports we consistently get 1% feedback from our 18,000 fans. You have to know your fans, what they respond too, and you have to make it about them, not YOU. A company like Walmart will never figure out how to do that and that makes a small company like Johnny Lew’s Sports so attractive for Facebook fans. We can cater to what they want to engage on. Plus, we actually enjoy interacting with the fans & hopefully that is evident with our fans and thus our higher engagement rate.
Thanks for commenting! In reviewing your last 10 posts, it looks like you’re getting anywhere from 4 (.021%) comments and 12 (.063%) likes on each post to 111 (.59%) likes and 41 (.22%) comments, out of your total 18782 fans.
To reach 1% engagement of your total fans, at least 187 people would need to like and comment on each post.
That number was exceeded only once in the last 10 posts with a post that received
278 likes and 84 comments, which is astounding. Looks like you’re still doing a great job out there, but why the huge flux in engagement from post to post?
Also, can you share a bit on how you developed such a strong fan base?
It is very important know the percentage about how many fans like something or write about something…. but most important is to know who like something, how many relations of their network like the same, and of course if the person write or participate again in the future with some action.
- Trends means lines about percentages
- Behavior means mathematical associations of these lines in different points of views
I am doing some behavior analysis over hundred thousand fans of an specific company. For this reason I wanted to humble contribute with this point of view
Warmest Regards, nice article!