Engagement Rate 2010

ENGAGEMENT RATE 2010

THE ENGAGEMENT BETWEEN BRANDS AND PEOPLE ON
FACEBOOK: 2010 TRENDS AND ANALYSIS

What is this?
Fact: Facebook, in one way or another, is a growing part of marketing and
advertising. It is a growing part of our work.

We do not release many research papers during the year, usually one or
two. In the spite of this, we always try to seize an opportunity to
understand what links a user to a brand in facebook.

With this research, we are sharing our insights. We are doing it with a
metric that we have developed. This paper is geered towards the digital
and marketing masses, incorporating both agencies and clients.

We hope you will ﬁnd it useful.

Thank you,

Gianluca Arnesano, CEO
gianluca@frozenfrogs.it
Denis Rasia, Strategy Planner
denis@frozenfrogs.it

About this paper
In 2009, with global brands moving their eyes onto Facebook (and vice
versa) we felt the need to measure what we were seeing between brands
and consumers.

We developed a metric called Engagement Rate http://slidesha.re/
7vsd0F, essentially it is the rate between interactions* and fans** of a
brand page.

For page administrator, the metric can somewhat be close to the Post
Feedback** but, because the numbers on their own have little meaning,
the advantage of the E.R. relies on comparing different pages, different
brands and different industries.

By doing so, we could better understand how brands can adapt to their
content to create a better connection with people.

* Interactions: like and comments on a news item posted by a brand.
** Fans are now people who “like”.
*** Post Feedback can now be found on your page insights.

Why engagement is
now more important
than ever
With facebook attaining over 500 million users* and closing in on Google
in terms of pageviews**, we espect that people will consume content more
and more often via the news feed**.

If before it was just a matter of getting fans (or becoming liked), now it is a
matter of making your content relevant enough to be streamed in usersʼ
news feed.

* http://blog.facebook.com/blog.php?post=409753352130
** http://siteanalytics.compete.com/facebook.com+google.com/
*** News feed = your stream of news in facebook.com

On facebook, each interaction is part of a story. When

The organic stories someone likes or comment a status update, he/she
creates an organic story. When your Facebook contacts

on facebook
interacts with a brand, there are chances that the story will
be considered of your interest and, consequently, feeded
in your Top News section gaining in earned media
exposure.

AWARENESS
Additionally, paid media (ads) can raise Self-service ads and
awareness and eventually create organic PAID MEDIA engagement ads
stories.

Organic stories
When there is feedback on the news item,
a new organic story begins and it will be
fed to different contacts, gaining in earned EARNED MEDIA
media User
Feedback
(Engagement)

A news item (status update, video, image, New
etc…) is posted on the page owned by the OWNED MEDIA content
brand.

It isn’t SEO, but the
first page matters.
Organising content compelling enough for creating organic stories is not
just a matter of awareness.

The news feed is a place where owned and earned media mix together,
creating a page where people get information both from a brand and from
a trusted circle of contacts.

To understand the importance of the news feed, we just need to think how
Facebook is studying and trying different and integrated paid media
solution (to name one: Engagement Ads) to facilitate the creation of new
organic stories.*

* Differences between Facebook Ads and Sponsored Stories http://www.facebook.com/help/?
faq=19724

Data and methodology
• 50 global brands examined for the • Engagement Rate calculated on a
entire 2010 monthly average interactions.

• more than 12,000 status update • Brands are not divided by typical
written in brand pages industry deﬁnition, but by their relation
with consumers.
• more than 10,000,000 interactions to
brands as likes and comments • Brands covered in details in the next
slide are not intended as “winners” but
as pratical ways to explain concepts.

Brand to Drink
Engagement Rate has always been about how brands relate with their audience. For
the “Brands to drink” we looked at Corona and their “The Big Like-back” activity.

We actually really like it. Why? It is similar to a contest, but prizes are unlocked by
the cumulative effort of all the people that like Corona. Cutting the contest in different
unlockable rewards is a way to scale the competition, so that is not a short burst.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: Contests are a great way to create engagement in
the short term but the planning should consider that we are talking about social
spaces. So scale it in a way that you have something to tell and ﬁnd the right
rewards or you will just get prize-hunters.

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: This is a way to gather
likes to your page. These stories are short and there is little room of development
(no comments, for instance), but other contacts could like the page too after seeing it
on the News Feed.
1,00

0,75

0,50

0,25

0
Jan Mar May Jul Sep Nov

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0

Engagement Rate calculated on the monthly average of interactions.

Brand to Eat
Why Campbellʼs for brands to eat? When looking at KFC, McDonalds or PizzaHut,
our eyes went straight to Campbells page for their moderation efforts. The team
working on the page is very responsive to their users.

We would also like to note that we are talking about soups and not tablets (nor
smartphones, nor designer items). It is interesting to see that engagement can be
created regardless of the coolness of the brand/product.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: Everyone talks about big fashionable brands, but
engagement can be created for other different brands after discovering the right
content.

1,00
HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: Moderating and
participating to the conversation is the best way to grow existing organic stories, with
0,75 better chances of more exposure in the news feed.

0,50 It is also good social media discipline.

0,25

0

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0

2,0 1,00

1,5 0,75

1,0 0,50

0,5 0,25

0 0


1,00

0,75

0,50

0,25

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic


Brand to Drive
Automotive is the industry that pushes every time, the limits in advertising, marketing
and communication. And even on social media they are nothing less.

Audi gives us the occasion to think about brands operating in different countries.
Why Audiʼs main page the USA one? Should it not been more generic? Or
european? Maybe US is the main market? In Europe we understand that 140mph
are not 140km/h, but they sound like 140km/h!

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: Different languages can be show to the right users
with ﬁlters and with specialised tools such as Buddy Media. However, complex
organisation should opt for local pages and produce relevant content with tabs, text,
applications, videos, etc. This should help keep things smooth if you ﬁnd yourself
dealing too much with the international department :)

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: The more relevant your
1,00 content is, the easier is to get engagement and, consequently, create organic stories
that will be fed to the people contacts trough the news feed. Also, the content that is
0,75 relevant for a European could not be relevant for an American.

0,50

0,25

0

Brand to Work
Or, the page says: “So, what DOES Xerox do?”

Xerox is such an interesting case for the naming. Although we are talking of another
top global brand, not everyone might have a clear idea of what exactly they do.
Actually, the ﬁrst question that pop into in my mind is “What does Xerox do in
Facebook?”

The team behind social/digital managed to be creative showing some bravery (or
maybe they do not know that the page name cannot be changed) by using their
ofﬁcial page to answer that question.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: There is absolutely no need to stick to the style
1,00
manual. If there is opportunity to better tell your story, be creative on the titles, on the
images and on the content that you provide.
0,75

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: Doing a social media
0,50
check-up or brand audit can unveil questions wherein people need answers. A
monitor tool solution such as Radian6 can help spot these questions. Besides,
0,25
answers are often relevant content that can make it to the Top News.
0

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0


1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0

1,00

0,75

0,50

0,25

0
Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dic


Brand to Wear

Zara, compared to other major brand pages, has a moderate frequency of updates.

While, at ﬁrst, this might look like a lack of maintenance, it is one of their strongest
points. Zara engage its audience with the only thing that really matters to them:
clothes. And stores too.

How they do it? Posting the right material. Just check how they announced their new
store in Rome.
1,00
WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE AND HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC
0,75 STORIES: We hardly believe that “the more I write, the better”.

0,50 Frequency is not the key for creating organic stories and good content can be picked
up later by users. We could see soon* stories pushed on the top of a brand page for
0,25 their relevance, making walls less chronologically based.

* http://www.insidefacebook.com/2011/01/20/top-posts-ﬁlter-surfaces-the-best-user-content-on-facebook-page-walls/
0

Brands to Dream: All
We liked them all. Seriously.

But what is a brand to dream? Is that brand that falls into the category of “irrational
buying reasons”, also known as luxury. Is also the engagement irrational? No.

In one of our previous reports, when social proﬁles of luxury brands were created by
fans and yet not run by the brand, we noticed how this affected the brand - it was
somewhat aspirational. There is a need to feel close, to be part of that world, to see
your own proﬁle picture just underneath the brand logo.

However, liking something on a page is just one clike away and to mantain
awareness in Facebook just being there is not enough. It has never been enough,
actually.
That is why all those brands are creating ever more compelling stories that can be
liked, shared and commented upn Facebook. For LV itʼs Bono, for Burberry their
acoustic shows. The substance: there is always something to narrate.

1,00 Plus... while not everyone can afford Louis Vuitton, at least the engagement is free.

0,75 WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE AND HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC
STORIES: Working with visual media is another way to engage with the audience.
0,50 Highly creative work can also be a viral inside the social network. And this turns to
be true especially for those brands that need to send an emotion.
0,25

0

Brands to Communicate

Brands like Nokia and Blackberry show us how a brand page can act like the main
news feed for the company. After all, arenʼt corporate websites becoming irrelevant?*

Every brand has different new products each year, but this does not necesseraly
mean that you should create a different product page. Instead, you should get
creative with tabs, apps, proﬁle pictures and keep working with the already
established audience.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: Sometimes accounts, sometime clients, ask for a
dedicated campaign (ok!), a dedicated minisite (ok!) and dedicated social proﬁle (not
so ok!). People that clicked like cannot be moved from a page to another so, opening
a page for a product lunch that will be abandoned after the end of the campaign, it is
most likely a waste of resources.
1,00

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: Starting a page from
0,75 scratch means starting from zero. And with zero audience, the chance of creating
organic stories will be narrowed to nil.
0,50

* 2007, but still very relevant http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/2007/05/29/web-strategy-how-to-evolve-your-
0,25 irrelevant-corporate-website/

0

1,00 1,00

0,75 0,75

0,50 0,50

0,25 0,25

0 0


Brands for use Everyday
Is a brand worth sharing?

Sharing is a quality, but also a requirement, when working on social media. A brand
should be indeed remarkable, but should also be shareable.

Remarkable and shareable are very close: if I expect my brands to be shared, it
needs to be remarkable to be able to ignite such an action. But shareble has
something more: it facilitates the circulation, it is something that sparks the act of
passing the word.

Often it is just a matter of technical consideration. When you work of YouTube for
instance, let the content to be embeddable, provide shorter url, etc...

WHAT CAN WE LEARN HERE: It might be an obvious concept, or just a simple
concept, but when developing graphic assets, content and other material, there
should be room for making it shareable.

HOW DOES THIS APPLY TO THE ORGANIC STORIES: Sharing is at the base of
social media. Even a simple Like on a status update is something that is shared, with
1,00
the brand and with the contacts. When working on your content, think what can be
valuable to share for your audience and remove any eventual gaps that can prevent
0,75
your content to be shared.
0,50

0,25

0

So how do we create
organic stories?
We just have a single and simple tip for creating organic
stories: find a story, scale it, tell it.

Perhaps it is too obvious, or just simple, but that is the
best way, in our opinion to get to the consumer.

Finding your story means find what is relevant to the
people and, consequently, which content has more
chances of engaging your fans and to result in the main
stream news.

Benchmarking similar industries/brand give an idea on
how to start this.

Of course, after finding your content, you should be at
least a bit creative, scaling it, using pictures and videos,
acting in the social scene, mixing short and long term
tactics.

Some tips for page
managers
1. Have your content planned. The most stupid thing to do is
looking for content on the same day that should be
posted.

2. Stories should be scaled. That means: ﬁnd your topic and
turn it in different pieces to be released progressively
(look at Nikeʼs Write the Future for one example).

3. A social media monitoring solution can help the creation
of relevant material by spotting trends and useful insights.

4. Keep under your radar some key people. They could help
co-create content, (a lot more useful than begging them
for visibility in their blog!)

5. We told you last time, but is worth remembering it. Be
creative and make visual materials part of the content.

6. Facebook Apps should be contextualized with your
content planning.

7. Still no ideas for your page? Look at how relevant brands
to your work do it right (or wrong).

Who we are
FrozenFrogs is a digital agency based in Rome.

Our work starts from understanding how we can connect
brands and users in social spaces. Creating
conversations is just the beginning of our work, a work
that integrates with all the aspects of the digital life of a
client.

more at:

http://www.frozenfrogs.it/en/agency.html
http://www.facebook.com/frozenfrogs

Show us your
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