Is the Facebook fanbase for big brands less interactive?
5 Comments
In my article on how to encourage Facebook discussion, I used examples of big brands: Virgin America, Hilton, Ritz Carlton, etc.
Yes, they are getting a lot of interaction, but Michael accurately called me out on this:
It’s not fair to us little guys to suggest some of the hotel examples are any form of impressive interaction. If you are talking replies to single posts, it’s nice to see some conversation. But the population of a page has to be considered…. Look at the volume of people not interacting in the slightest.
Using your examples:
Virgin has 62,476 fans.
.0416 % responded, and .0688 % clicked “like”Hilton Hotels has 45,037 fans.
That means .0822 % commented, and .1867 % to press “like”Ritz Calrton has 18,563 fans.
.0593 % responded, .1131 % clicked “like”That is *INSANELY* discouraging.
Point taken. Perhaps we should be looking at smaller brands instead for good examples?
At the end of the day, it always comes back to this one-line formula for social media success. It’s harder for big brands to share that personality…
You should enter your email below to receive new tips like this each Monday morning:
Another clear case of why we must be sooo wary of running after numbers…
Josiah, I was just thinking to myself the other day, I must be one of the few hoteliers who actually responds to ALL the messages I get !
Maybe it is because I chose to have only 4 Suites in my Couples Hotel in Goa and not 40 or even 400 !
As I have always said, SIZE DOES MATTER
Cheers
Mihir
AWESOME. I was looking for those numbers again. I wasn’t sure about it, and wanted to go over how Facebook is working for biz. I am humbled by your support, sir.
As for these tools, I am starting to be much less active, and using them much more for user engaged interaction and basically just listening. People will engage you… but hell it’s obvious they don’t want to be engaged.
Social Media tools such as FB or Twitter were created to generate interactions between human beings. It got hijacked by marketers along the way for easy distribution of promotional messages but we have to remember that the initial reason why people are using FB or Twitter or others is not to be told about the new Pay 1 get 1 free at any Hilton. So I’m not really surprised by these numbers. Virgin it is slightly different because it is backed-up by the very strong personality of Richard Brandson. So there is a human dimension to the Virgin brand.
Oh how I love the concept of personal branding a la Richard Branson.
With all my communication methods, I try and make my Mitaroy Goa Hotel as personal as possible.
As Joe Girard says, no matter what you sell, you have to sell yourself !
Cheers
Mihir
http://www.hrabaconsulting.com/blog/2010/09/01/facebook-brand-pages-community-interaction-what-do-we-know/
Beating the dead horse… I take the top 10 brand pages and start to dissect them, but am overwhelmed by questions before being able to finish. I think it’s quite a good post. Narcissism, Brand Pages, and the challenge of Facebook