FreshNetworks Blog

Here at FreshNetworks we’ve always argued that engagement is a much more interesting metric than popularity, which is why we’re big fans of Socialbaker’s Engagement Analytics tool, as it provides granular information on a variety of  Facebook related engagement statistics.

We used Socialbakers to compare two large rival Facebook pages (both are approaching 2 million fans) for two similar consumer products – Unilever’s AXE and P&G‘s  Old Spice – in order to test the tool and compare the different strategies employed by each brand during September.

1. Content strategies

A comparison of both AXE and Old Spice Facebook walls show the different content strategies that the brands are using:

AXE’s landing page is their ‘Premature Perspiration’ tab, which plays a video and links to an app, which certainly diverts fans from their wall.

Clicking through to AXE’s wall displays all posts, meaning that a first time visitor is unlikely to see any of the brand’s posted content; this is bound to be detrimental to engagement levels.

Old Spice, on the other hand, give priority to their own posts. This not only means their latest post is always prominent, but so too are older ones, making them “stickier” in the eyes of a visitor. Old Spice have clearly worked with their recognisable tone of voice of the “Old Spice Guy”, which is reflected in the nature of their updates. AXE’s updates are much more eclectic, designed and intended for a specific young, male audience.

Winner: Old Spice

2. Post frequency and variety

Aside from the different ways of displaying their walls, AXE and Old Spice have a pronounced difference in terms of how often they post, and what types of content they share.

Throughout September, Old Spice made 20 posts, while AXE bordered on three times as much activity with 54 posts, often posting twice daily.

In terms of the breakdown of content, Old Spice made 16 text updates, 2 links and 2 videos (Socialbakers analysed all videos for both pages as “links”).

AXE on the other hand, has a much broader approach with 42 photo updates (including albums), followed by 7 videos, 3 links, 1 poll and just 1 text update.

Winner: AXE

3. Engagement

At a first glance, you would imagine the variety of updates posted by AXE to offers deeper engagement, yet this is not reflected in Socialbakers’ calculation as it takes into account the number of posts being made.

By posting less frequently, and drawing more attention to their posts, Old Spice are able to leverage a greater rate of engagement from a lower amount of posts.

Winner: Old Spice

4. Response rates

While Old Spice is able to remain highly engaging, it is significantly weaker than AXE when it comes to responding to fans.  AXE’s two community managers, Dan and Laura, sign off each post personally and even appear in various photos and videos. This gives fans an opportunity for a dialogue with real people, whereas Old Spice posts remain in the tone of voice of the Old Spice Guy and are rarely followed up.

Old Spice are clearly successful with their ongoing use of the Old Spice Guy’s persona, while AXE has two real people acting as the contact point for the fans. It could be argued that Old Spice’s engagement is mostly passive, while AXE has actual interaction between their fans and community managers.

Winner: AXE

Conclusions

It’s  not simple to say that one page is superior to the other.  Old Spice is way ahead of Axe in terms of engagement, but according to Socialbakers’ metrics (in the table to the right) they are not doing anything exceptional.

What is clear, though, is that merely looking at the prominent numbers on a Facebook page will not give much information as to its effectiveness.

Image courtesy of Ag Knowlogy

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a customer loyalty metric developed by Fred Reichheld, Bain & Company, and Satmetrix.

NPS is calculated by asking customers a single question, eg,”How likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?” and asking them to rate their answer between 1-10, where 10 is “extremely likely” and 0 is “not at all likely”.

Based on their response, customers are categorized into one of three groups: Promoters (9–10 rating), Passives (7–8 rating), and Detractors (0–6 rating). The percentage of Detractors is then subtracted from the percentage of Promoters to obtain a Net Promoter Score.

Here are a few ways in which social media could potentially improve your Net Promoter Score:

1. Customer Service

The obvious option – use social media channels as an additional opportunity to assist customers and thus increase satisfaction. Twitter is a “quick win” as a social media customer service channel and it should be manned, monitored and used by dedicated members of your customer service team.

2. Expectation management

Improve your chances of delivering against expectations by acquiring the ‘right’ customers and ensuring they are completely aware about what your product or services can do for them. Encouraging more and better (e.g. video) reviews will help this. For example, if you’re an e-commerce business you could help reduce the number of (costly) returned orders thanks to the better expectation setting that comes from unadulterated customer reviews.

3. Insight

NPS should not be just about the number; understanding what turns off detractors and what makes promoters rave about you is where the real value lies. Both social media monitoring and market research online communities (MROCs) can be useful for diving deeper into your perceived strengths and what you need to improve on. The more you can encourage feedback through an ongoing, two-way conversation, the better understanding you will have about how customers perceive your business and what you need to change.

4. Enhanced connection with an organisation

Social media gives customers an opportunity to feel directly connected to the heart of the business. With this in mind, you could consider running a closed community of promoters, with a high NPS,  for your brand. This gives advocates the chance to hang out with other advocates and like-minded people in their own space. As a result, they’ll feel like insiders and could increase enthusiasm for your brand as well as potentially seeing an increase in their aggregate NPS score too.

5. Convert detractors into promoters

Use social media monitoring to pick out detractors and work to improve their perception of your brand. Develop a proper social media management plan to focus on this specific group and tailor procedures and content to help turn them from detractors into passives or promoters.

This morning I presented on the importance of remembering the people involved in social media – who you are engaging and what they want from you. When brands struggle on Facebook or Twitter it is usually because they haven’t thought through what is in it for the people they are engaging. It is easy as a brand to decide how you want to use social media, and what you want people to do. It is less easy, but more important, to consider what the people you are engaging want to do.

I decided to show this through a simple story – that of Mary (a mum) and Jack (who works in marketing for a large FMCG firm). Jack wants to sell a new breakfast cereal to Mary and thinks that social media isn’t the answer. But he has made a big mistake…

The story is simple but it is one many brands can learn from – understand the motivations, needs and interests of the people you are looking to engage. If you don’t they probably won’t want to follow or Like you.

Data is the new oil. Apparently.

While this may be a slightly strange and annoying cliché by now, data is vitally important for enabling businesses to learn more about their customers and their audience.

I went to a talk this morning titled ‘The importance of growth and the data economy’. There were a number of speakers at the event, but with data at the heart of each of their presentations, there were some key questions answered:

1. Where is all this data about us coming from?

In short, cookies. Cookies are small, often encrypted text files, located in browser directories. They are created when a user’s browser loads a particular website. Cookies can track your surfing habits, that over time build up a profile of your interests.

2. What is being done with this data?

This data is used to target you and show adverts that are meant to be the most relevant to you. For example, on its website, HP is transparent and answers the question about how it uses automatic data collection tools

“HP or its service providers send cookies when you surf our site or sites where our ads appear, make purchases, request or personalize information, or register yourself for certain services. Accepting the cookies used on our site, sites that are “powered by” another company on HP’s behalf, or sites where our ads appear may give us access to information about your browsing behavior, which we may use to personalize your experience.”

This implies that as soon as you enter the HP site that they will be harvesting all of your personal data.

3. So should I be concerned?

What is most important to note about cookies is that you provide the information to them. If you fill out a form on a website and provide sensitive information such as your name, address, email, credit card etc, then this data can be stored in a cookie. If you are concerned about a certain site, you can of course choose not to accept a cookie. In this instance however, I doubt you would want to enter your information into that site anyway.

Ultimately, cookies provide personalisation for each user and the ads that you see are targeted so that they are most relevant for you. After all, an advertiser selling life insurance for over 40′s will not want you to see the ad if you are a healthy 25-year-old.

4. What is the role of data in social media?

Ensuring that there is a joined up approach across the organisation is key. When running a campaign, it is essential that the target audience is the same for the various activities, be it ATL or social media.

Targeting these people can then be done with social advertising on networks like Facebook. However, beyond this it’s important that personalised conversations are happening within your target audience and this is the key place where social activity can differentiate itself.

Establishing relationships with people in of social networks and online communities will help create a more engaged audience and increase the likelihood of these people becoming customers and, in turn, brand ambassadors or influencers, thereby spreading the word in the communities they are active among your key audience.

5. How can I engage with my target audience?

In order to engage with your target audience, you first need to identify them. This can be done by carrying out social media monitoring or using the various listening tools that are avaliable on the market place.

This is only the first step, though. While automated solutions are a great way to keep your costs to a minimum, the real work is then in reviewing the information and then refining it.

A recent research paper conducted by comScore and Facebook shows that the reach of branded content among friends of fans significantly exceeds the reach among fans themselves.

The two potential audiences for branded content on Facebook are:
1. Fans of brands on Facebook (ie, those who have explicitly “liked” a brand).
2. Friends of these fans.

While those who have explicitly “liked” a brand are the easiest to reach with social media brand impressions, friends of those fans also constitute an important incremental audience. In fact, according to the research, they typically represent a much larger set of consumers – 34 times larger, on average, for the top 100 brand pages.

So when a brand is focused on acquiring and engaging fans it should also keep in mind that exposure among friends of fans can often surpasses reach among fans itself.

Now, these findings aren’t exactly rocket science, but it could help marketers to evaluate the earned media impact they get from their Facebook investment.

Other key findings of the report include:

• Facebook is the dominant social networking site with an audience of approximately 160 million U.S. visitors each month and accounts for 90 percent of all time spent on social networking sites.

• Facebook users spend more than a quarter of their time on the site consuming and interacting with the Facebook Newsfeed, and this activity represents 4 percent of all time spent online in the U.S. The Newsfeed is also the primary location where branded content is consumed.

• Facebook users are 40-150 times more likely to consume branded content in the Newsfeed section of Facebook rather than in branded fanpage.

• In the case of some brands, Facebook Fans may have different aggregate demographic and behavioral profiles than typical brand purchasers, indicating that social media may require different approaches to marketing strategy.

• The “Value of a Fan” can be assessed in three primary ways: increasing the depth of engagement and loyalty among Fans, generating incremental purchase behavior, and leveraging the ability to influence Friends of Fans.