Socialbakers has released its latest report into top brand performance in the UK and, no surprise, big names like Amazon, Coca-Cola and iTunes lead the league when ranked on their number of followers.
But “as any fule kno” measuring the number of fans alone is a pretty pointless exercise. Having fans counts for nothing if they don’t engage with your content because Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm will help ensure that little more than 5% of your fans will ever see your posts.
So the chart that’s more insightful is actually the ‘Post Engagement Rate’ table which ranks brands by the number of fans who engage with the brand’s posts. And here we see brands like Blossom Hill, a winemaker, and Whiskas, a pet food brand, performing well:
Take a note of those engagement levels. Of the brands that Socialbakers monitors, the top performer in August 2013 was Blossom Hill with 2.18% engagement, mostly derived from the summer image below that drove huge engagement (20.4%) towards the end of the month:
However, the average engagement level of all brands on Facebook was 0.18% in August. To put that into perspective, for every 10,000 fans you amass you can expect to get just 18 points of engagement (a ‘Like, comment, share etc.) for each post you make.
Blossom Hill seems to be focussing its Facebook marketing on a heavily visual, photo-based strategy and, for now, it seems to be working. It’s certainly quite distinctive and consistent, helping ensure that each first point of engagement with a fan should lead to repeat interactions. And it’s a world away from the lazy tactics used by brands like Play.com. It’s good to see a smart strategy, based on bringing entertainment and utility to people’s lives, paying dividends.
How do your results compare? Are you beating the 0.18% average, and what would it take to compete with brands like Blossom Hill and stretch to the dizzy heights of a 2% engagement level?
Notes:
You can download the Socialbakers tables from here.