I wrote last year about the sheer number of big brands that don't really get Facebook, evidenced by research showing that big brands typically need 1,000 fans to generate 1 click through to their website.
New research provides more grist as to the depth of this malaise. The study, by the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute, revealed that just 1% of fans are engaged with big brands on Facebook.
The research team used the 'people talking about this' metric to gauge the level of interaction between fans and big brand Facebook Pages. They compared the engagement metric as a percentage of overall fan growth of the top 200 brands on Facebook over a six week period.
They found that the average engagement figure was just 1.3% of the overall fan base. What's worse is that this metric includes all of the people that like a page, so the more new likes you get, the higher this score. If new likes were subtracted, the truer reflection of engagement was a pitiful 0.45%.
So let's get this straight. Of the fans of big brand pages, only 5 in every 1,000 fans do anything on the page, with just 1 of every 1,000 clicking through.
What is interesting is that the researchers believe this is an ok return and compare Facebook to mass media.
"I don't think it's a bad thing," said Karen Nelson-Field, senior research associate for Ehrenberg-Bass Institute who describes herself as a "Facebook advocate." "People need to understand what it can do for a brand and what it can't do. 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."
They suggest that growth is achieved not by reaching out to a core group of loyalists, but by reaching out to a much larger number of light and medium buyers. In that context social media offers strong reach, with engagement an afterthought.
I'm interested in your thoughts on this. Do you regard social media such as Facebook as merely another channel to reach out to as many people as possible OR is it a channel whereby you can deepen the relationship with people?
I've created a poll in LinkedIn to gauge your opinion, so feel free to vote below.
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I would say it is exactly this kind of thinking that results in the low engagement figures. It's madness to think that a more engaged following is not more valuable than a disengaged one. After all, you're looking for click throughs (or whatever). If people aren't clicking through then you're wasting your time.
Interesting finding – looks like social for brands is just another form of media – less about conversations
Staggering. No wonder engagement is so bad on social media. These people should forget the total number as that is practically useless, and instead focus on the number of engaged fans. That should focus attention a bit.
I agree Nick, but I suppose many marketing people have grown up in the broadcast era and it\’s proving difficult to shift from that mindset.
It's all about quality and not quantity. Deepen relationships for sure because that is what we need as an organisation in the services industry deeper relationships instead of more transactions. Relationships are based on people connecting and collaborating with people. From that you get engagement. Who will be the winners people who listen, connect & adopt. Typically this is difficult for large organisations. It is the people within that organisation who can make a difference. People trust people and in our industry it's about people serving people that is why we started with a social media adoption program in service in order to support our webcare teams. All about relationships.
I think you're quite right Jeroen.
I suspect what underpins it all is the fact that many companies are still of the make and sell variety. So they produce what they think the market wants and then try and push it out via whatever channel they think works best.
Contrast that to ‘sense and respond’ companies that use more of a pull system and only build what the customer says they want. With that level of interaction and closeness between buyer and seller, it’s easy to see how social media would become very powerful.
I think that one's approach to social media probably depends on the nature of the product and the potential size of the market. I have a hard time imagining that Coke can establish meaningful relationships with enough people for it to have an impact on their overall market. And maybe I'm just cranky, but frankly, the notion of "meaningful relationship" in the context of "Coke" seems somewhat absurd to me. So, for Coke, it makes complete sense to me that Facebook is just another mass market vehicle, albeit one with tons of interesting demographic information that allows for more focussed campaigns.
On the other hand, I work for a company whose target market is relatively small, and whose product (software) offers a reasonably sophisticated set of features — if I do say so myself
It makes total sense for us to try and establish meaningful relationships with those who are enthusiastic users of our product. In fact, it makes sense for us to try and establish meaningful relationships with *all* of our customers and even those who have expressed some level of interest.
That's a good point Terry. There is no one size fits all approach to this. There are some sectors that fit so well with community that it's akin to shooting fish in a barrel. Other sectors are a much harder sell.