FreshNetworks Blog

Having already looked at the Facebook engagement and content strategy of two large rival consumer brands (Unilever’s AXE v P&G’s Old Spice) we thought it would be interesting to use social analytics tool Socialbakers to look at the engagement levels for another two rival consumer giants – Coca-Cola and Pepsi.

1. Fans

At face value, Coca-Cola has 29,368,850 more fans than Pepsi. Coca-Cola’s fan total stands at a whopping 35,454,838:

During October Coca-cola’s fans grew by 1,020,439  and Pepsi’s only grew by 188,349.

2. Engagement

We’ve always believed in building real engagement rather than “likes” or fans and so, to us,  the really interesting analysis comes when looking at the activity of Coca-Cola and Pepsi in terms of engagement.

Using Facebook’s “Talking About” metric, during October significantly more people were “Talking about” Coca-Cola instead of Pepsi:

While the people “Talking About” metric  seems to be fairly consistent for Pepsi, the increase and subsequent peak in people “Talking About” for Coca-Cola on 29th October could be because tickets for the Coca-Cola sponsored NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race at Daytona International Speedway  went on sale on Saturday October 29th.

However, even though more people were “Talking About” Coca-cola during October, in terms of other engagement metrics is appears as though Pepsi has the advantage:

Pepsi has an average engagement rate of 0.06% versus Coca-Cola’s 0.04%.  What’s more,  Pepsi has a total of 180,050 interactions (posts and comments) to Coca-Cola’s 117,964, again proving their higher engagement levels. Part of the reason behind this is that Pepsi used a lot of pictures and images to engage with its audience during October, rather than just links and text, thereby helping to generate a lot of interactions with the page.

Also, throughout October, Coca-cola made 21 posts, while Pepsi bordered on almost three times the activity with 53 posts, often posting twice daily. Updating and refreshing content on a regular basis is likely to have helped with Pepsi’s engagement rate.

So it seems that although Coca-cola has the more ‘famous’ Facebook page, with by far the most number of fans, in terms of engagement during October it seems that Pepsi is the winner.

It would be interesting to track this trend over a longer period of time than just a month to get a real understanding of the levels of engagement on each page.

Image courtesy of Adhistory

The Grocer recently published its Top 100 advertisers report and showed that Coca-Cola cut ad spend by 6.6% in 2010 and invested more in social media.

A spokeswoman at Coca-Cola said that while TV is still an important medium from promoting their brands,”many of our recent advertising campaigns and promotions have also utilised online facilities such as Facebook and YouTube more”.

With the launch of Coke Zone, a social media oriented site which offers Coke drinkers access to exclusive content and rewards, Coca-Cola has clearly realised the value of integrating offline and online marketing.

While Coke Zone is considered to be a valuable point of interaction with consumers, what’s more interesting is that using social media has allowed Coca-Cola to break out of the stop-start cycle of more traditional media campaigns and to start engaging on a more frequent, ongoing basis. Coca-Cola’s social media strategy is clearly about long-term sustainable engagement, developing advocacy and encouraging brand loyalty.

This is something that other fmcg brands would do well to think about. Social media is not just about campaigns or generating buzz around a new product launch. It can be used to engage with consumers on an ongoing basis in order to deepen relationships with a brand.

Perhaps it’s time for other areas of the consumer market place to reconsider their advertising spend too. In particular, household brands. Household brands spent a whopping £177.8 million on advertising in 2010. But with the rising cost of detergent ingredients threatening retail prices (both coconut oil and palm kernel oil are up 130% on last years price) can household brands continue to spend big bucks on advertising or should they be looking at alternative means, perhaps through social media, of developing brand loyalty?

Starbucks is the most popular brand on Facebook when ranked by the number of people who ‘Like’ a brand (‘Fans’ as they used to be called). Over 7.5 million people like the coffee chain on Facebook, almost 2 million more than like the second most popular brand, Coca-Cola.

This data comes from Famecount which ranks brands (and people) based on the number of people who follow, like or friend them in social networks. It shows that food and drink brands are in each of the top five places, with fashion brands making up most of the remaining places in the top ten. Consumers are interested in what these brands are doing, or at least want to flag their interest in the brand or product on their own Facebook profile.

The top ten brands on Facebook (Global)

*Note: figures updated where relevant to be correct as of June 10 2010

Do the number of Facebook Likes matter?

Data like this is great for understanding user behaviour in Facebook. Showing us for which brands, and for which type of brands, users are more likely to click to say that they ‘Like’ it. However, for the brand, does the number of people who like you on Facebook matter? Not always.

The number of people who like you on Facebook is not the most important measure on Facebook. A more powerful measure is the number who engage with the brand. Liking a brand is an easy step and people do it for many reasons. At one end of the engagement spectrum because they want to hear from and exchange ideas with the brand. At the other end of the spectrum because they just want this ‘Like’ recorded as a badge on their Facebook profile. They may have no intention (or indeed desire) to engage at all with the brand.

And it is this engagement number that is of more use for brands. They want people who talk to them, like their posts and images, share their content and are active advocates of the brand. This means more than just ‘Liking’ the brand but doing something with it and engaging more deeply with it in Facebook. For any brand it is typically better for it to have 1 million fans, of which 5% engage with you on a regular basis, than to have 2 million fans with less than 1% engaging.

This number also shows the value of your presence in social media. It can be relatively easy for brands to build large numbers of ‘Likes’. It is less easy to get them to actually do something and to engage with you. But it is when they do that brands get real value.

So Facebook ‘Likes’ are important for brands, but actual engagement is even more important.

In Russia, there is a generation of people known locally as Generatsiia P (Generation P). These is the generation who grew up during a period of increasing openness to the West, when products like American soft drinks were available in shops. But there was still no choice – if you wanted a cola drink you could only buy Pepsi, not Coca-Cola. Your choice was restricted to what somebody else had decided for you. Whilst you could choose a cola based drink (and an imported one at that) over another type, your ability to choose stopped there.

I was thinking of this analogy early this week when we were talking at FreshNetworks about the benefits that social media and web 2.0 technologies bring to the way brands interact with customers. Whether for marketing, to engage them or for research, social media tools like online communities give the consumer real choice about what they interact with and when. They are in control.

With last.fm for instance, I can listen to music when I want and where, I don’t have to rely on the choice of a dj at a national station to predict what I listen to. I also don’t have to limit myself to music I personally own. I have much greater control of what I listen to, rather than relying on people to push out music at a time that suits them, I pull on this music when I want to. I have more control.

So it is also in online communities. In our communities we see people take part at a time that suits them. Some people may never use the forums but always read and comment on blog entries. Others may do neither of these things but will upload media and comment on that. When you are developing your strategy you need to recognise this and make sure you cater for the people you want to be in the community, and cater for the things they choose to do in it.

Of course this choice on the part of the community member can also be used as a benefit. In our online research communities, for example, this freedom to choose is a significant advantage over other research methods. When you expect people to answer a survey or be insightful when you call them or at the time you run a focus group, it may not be at a time that they have the insight you want. They may need time to reflect, their first answer may not be their fullest, they may work better if they get to read other responses then spend time thinking about this. Traditional research works by recognising and dealing with this. Online research communities can really capitalise upon the choice you give the respondent over when they say. They are very much in control of their responses as they can come back at any time and add to them or change them as they see fit.

This kind of choice is empowering. I can contribute to discussions when I want to. I can watch videos at a time that suits me. I can listen to the music I want, when I want to. I can chat to my friends when we’re both online. Social media allows me real choice and as such I think you get a better quality of interaction with people. By giving us the choice to take part when we want, and the means to take part how we want to, you give me all the tools I need to engage with you. You don’t decide how or why I take part, I do. You don’t just offer me Pepsi, you give me a choice of soft drinks and I choose the one I want when I want it.

Some more reading

• The Paradigm Shift of Social Media and Time Management
• Requirements for a social media network
• The Tactical Road To Enterprise 2.0
• Your own branded online community vs advertising on Facebook
• Miss Manners We Need You
• Do we really need a Facebook magazine?

I found the Coca-Cola Conversations blog for the first time today, reading a post about how Coca-Cola first sponsored the Olympics games 80 years ago today. The blog is written by Phil Mooney, the “historian/archivest” of Coca-Cola, with the aim of

sharing information on a wide variety of topics, ranging from brand history to the value of collectibles

The blog asks people to comment and enter into a dialogue, and there is some exchange there. But reading this blog reminded me that corporate blogs, and indeed social media, can be used in very different ways by different organisations. This blog isn’t about new product developments or service advice; it’s about the history and heritage of the brand. And it seems to serve it’s purpose very well.

There are a few things that seem to make for a successful corporate blog:

1. A named and dedicated (main) contributor – when you are using social media as an organisation it’s important that you enter into the social and personal nature of the medium. The blog shouldn’t be from a brand because a brand can’t write. People want to know who is writing what they are reading – they will build a bond with them as they read more and more of their posts and so a face and a name are critical
2. Regular updating – companies develop and change quickly, and a consumer’s experience with your product will also be regular. The nature of social media encourages regular engagement and people expect this. It’s critical that you update your blog regularly. There is nothing worse than going to a brand’s blog and finding the last post was a few days or a few weeks ago.
3. Find ways to bring your consumers inside the business – this is something I think Coca-Cola Conversations does well. Corporate blogs should provide a way for their readers to feel more like insiders in the business. You should learn things that are not available elsewhere and as a community of readers feel that you are getting exclusive information as well as learning more about the organisation. This is why the brand history and heritage aspect of the blog work really well – you can find out more about Coca-Cola and feel like a true insider by reading the blog.

Each of these are important, but I think the latter is most important in terms of building engagement through the blog. Whilst the content that you post might be interesting and you may be doing it on a regular basis, creating an environment where people feel that they are insiders by reading the blog will have real benefits. People will want to come back and read more because the more they know about the brand and organisation the more they want to know more. They’ll also feel more comfortable commenting because you are encouraging and creating an atmosphere of sharing and discovering.

Of course creating this atmosphere is not easy. Coca-Cola Conversations does it well, as do other brands, and some of the lessons from this exercise would be good for others to apply. Perhaps the first stage is to find the one thing you can truly engage people on and that you can write regularly about. Isolate this and you have the beginnings of a real corporate blogging and social media strategy.

Some more reading

• 35+ Examples of Corporate Social Media in Action
• Should My CEO Have a Ghost-Written Blog?
• Why I Love Corporate Blogs
• Most Corporate Blogs Are Unimaginative Failures
• Is Social Networking and Blogging Bad for Business?