Executive summary

 

Pages attract business users to Facebook and lead the social network’s efforts to earn advertising revenues. However, this study of 5.7 million Facebook Pages shows that business users are still struggling to adapt to Facebook as an engagement opportunity. The study updates the findings of a similar research conducted by Recommend.ly in March 2012.
 
The current study discovered low levels of active Pages, fall in average number of posts and a huge drop in engagement rates since March. Page owners clearly need to do more to make Facebook work for them.
 
The study also found that the share of visual content on Pages has increased after the introduction of Timeline view for Pages. Also, it is found that Pages selecting specific category names such as ‘Spa’ or ‘Restaurant’ tend to be more focused and get better engagement from fans, compared to Pages choosing generic sounding category names such as ‘Local Business’.

 

Key Findings

• About 2 out 3 Facebook Pages are inactive in some way:
  • 63.9 per cent Pages have no cover photo
  • 70.1 per cent Pages make 0 posts a month
  • 83.4 per cent Pages never participated in conversations
  • 50 per cent Pages have less than 300 fans

 

• Pages are found to be making lesser posts in October 2012 compared to March 2012. Average number of Page posts fell by 19 per cent since March.

 

• Engagement Rates of Page posts across categories have fallen since March by an average of 40 per cent

 

• 50-60 per cent of content on Pages is now visual content (photos or videos) compared to just 15-20 per cent in March

 

Introduction
 
Facebook Pages (popularly known as ‘Fan Pages’) are a starting point for businesses wanting to connect to millions of potential and existing customers on Facebook. A Page allows brands to disseminate marketing and service information fast and lets customers interact directly with stake holders. Pages are also an important component of Facebook’s own revenue model[i] as 89% of Facebook’s total revenues come from brands advertising on the platform and Facebook attracts brands through Pages.
 
The past six months have been significant for Facebook Page owners. In the run up to its IPO and subsequently too, Facebook released a host of features such as the Timeline view, Offers, post scheduling and targeting, post-level promotions, group promotions, redesigned ad network, FB exchange etc to make Pages more attractive to businesses. The six month period has also seen a conscious effort by Facebook, and the social media industry in general, to raise awareness about Pages as potent social marketing properties.
 
In March 2012, we’ve studied the usage patterns of Facebook Pages in detail and released it to much appreciation from the social media industry. The full report can be found here.
 
The current study conducted in September – October 2012 provides extensive insights into Page usage by brands, and also updates the findings of the March study.

Objectives of the study

• How are various categories of business using Facebook for marketing
• What are the key behaviors of successful marketers on Facebook

Methodology
 
Facebook had 37 million Pages with 10 or more likes as of December 31, 2011[ii]. An updated number is not disclosed by Facebook subsequently, but we expect the number to exceed 50 million Pages by the end of 2012[iii].
 
For the purpose of this study, we used a sample of 5.76 million Facebook Pages with 10 or more likes. In our estimation, the sample represents more than 10 per cent of the universe. We gathered Page URLs for the sample collected from public directories. Using Facebook’s API, we collected Page data for up to 30 days all the Pages in the sample.
 
Parts of the study use a subset of 2.94 million Pages, to study specific patterns of various categories.
 
We carried out Conversation Score (http://cscore.recommend.ly) analysis to measure the effectiveness of the sample Pages.
 
In a similar study published in March 2012, we used a sample of 4.12 million Pages and a subset of 1.69 million Pages for studying specific patterns of various categories. Both October and March samples have a confidence level of 99% and confidence interval of less than 0.2%.

Sample size of the study
 

• Sample for the study consists of 5.76 million Facebook Pages with 10 or more likes
• A smaller sample of 2.94 million Pages (subset) was used to study specific usage patterns of various Page categories

 
 
Facebook Page categories

 

A.      Categories distribution

 Figure 1: Facebook Top Level Categories

Facebook allows 6 top level categories for Pages, and 160 sub-categories within them. Categories are important identifiers of a Page’s content.

For example, Rihanna’s Page is identified as a ‘Musician/Band’ Page, which is a sub-category of ‘Artist, band or public figure’. President Bill Clinton’s Page is categorized as ‘Public figure’, which is also part of the same top level category – ‘Artist, band or public figure’.
 
Even though Facebook currently offers 160 sub-categories, the list varies from time to time. The sample drawn in March had 273 sub-categories, which has come down to 204 in the October 2012 sample. Facebook has actively tried to clean up this list in recent times, with the intention of narrowing down the list to precise descriptions. The efforts appear to be paying off.
 
Facebook gives more importance to business Pages with five out of six top level categories representing business in some way. Only Community Pages can be said to be purely non-business.

Top Category	Mar-12	Oct-12	% Change
Brand or Product	7.5%	6.4%	-15.4%
Community	38.4%	36.9%	-3.8%
Company/Orgn	3.7%	9.7%	162.4%
Entertainment	6.8%	9.4%	39.7%
Local Business	18.0%	17.4%	-3.6%
Personal Brand	25.6%	20.2%	-21.1%

Table 1: Category distribution of Facebook Pages

 

• Cause/community Pages get a lion’s share of Facebook Pages with 36.9 per cent share

 

• Personal brand Pages (Artist, band or public figure) rank second with 20.2 per cent. Personal Pages saw a significant decline in share from March

 

• Company Pages gained the most share with an increase from 3.7 per cent in March to 9.7 per cent in October, revealing an increasing interest in Facebook as a marketing platform by businesses

 

 Figure 2: Category distribution of Facebook Pages

Category Distribution

• 63.1 per
  sale viagra

  cent of Facebook Pages have a business connection in some way. Only Community Pages constituting 36.9 per cent can be said to be purely non-business

 
 

 

B.      Top 10 sub-categories

 

In spite of the availability of 160 sub-categories, 70.2 per cent of the Pages fall within just 10 sub-categories on Facebook. Community category alone contributes to 36.9 percent.
 
Facebook sub-categories overlap quite a bit. For example, School and University are sub-categories in both ‘Local Business’ and ‘Company’. Cause and Community are distinct sub-categories of ‘Company’, but also combine to form a separate top level category[iv]. For a user, this may be leading to quite a bit of confusion. The following table shows that users select generic sounding categories as a result of this ambiguity, which may not be advisable. Later in the study, we will see that Pages selecting specific category names such as ‘Spa’ or ‘Restaurant’ tend to be more focused and get better engagement from fans.

Category	Percentage
Cause or Community > Community	36.9%
Local Business > Local Business	8.3%
Personal Brand > Musician/Band	7.0%
Personal Brand > Public Figure	4.8%
Company / Organization > Company	3.9%
Local Business > School	2.1%
Company / Organization > Non-Profit Organization	2.0%
Personal Brand > Artist	1.9%
Brand or Product > Product/Service	1.7%
Entertainment > Book	1.6%

Table 2: Top 10 sub-categories on Facebook

 

• Community category Pages dominate the top 10 list with 36.9 per cent share

 

• Local business Pages rank second, showing that there is rapid adoption of social media by local businesses

Top 10 Categories

• The top 10 list comprises of generic category names such as ‘Community’, ‘Local Business’, ‘Company’, ‘Public Figure’ etc. It is possible that the users find it difficult to find the specific category name that describes their business accurately, leading to the selection of generic names.

 
Fan count and Page activity
 
A.      Fan count distribution
 
Building fan communities is the fundamental objective of Facebook Pages. Even though a few ‘superstar’ Pages with millions of fans get all the attention, the average fan count of Pages is just 6,825 fans. This has slightly increased from the 6,400 average fan count observed in March. The growth rate in average fan count is 0.55 per cent, compared to 0.92 per cent monthly growth in Facebook’s users in the corresponding period.

Fan count range	Share	Cumulative share
10 – 100	36.4%	36.4%
101 – 1k	36.8%	73.3%
1k – 10k	20.6%	93.8%
10k – 100k	5.2%	99.0%
100k – 1 mn	0.9%	99.9%
1 mn+	0.1%	100.0%

Table 3: Fan count distribution

 

• 73.3 per cent of Facebook Pages have less than 1,000 fans and 99 per cent have less than 100,000 fans

 

• Only 0.1 per cent of Pages get to the coveted million fans mark

 

• Even though the arithmetic mean is 6,825 fans, 50% of Facebook Pages have less than 300 fans

 

Figure 3: Cumulative Fan Distribution

Sample of 2.94 million Pages 

To analyze the specific patterns, we have chosen 9 sub-categories representing Business, Personal brands and Community pages. These 9 categories comprise of 2.94 million Pages. Sub-categories selected were same as the ones chosen for the March study, which had a sample size of 1.7 million pages.
 
This sample comprises of:
 

1. “Personal brands” – Musician/Band, Actor/Director and Public Figure
2. “Business” categories – Local business, Company / organization, Restaurants and Spas+
3. “Interest” categories – Community

 
This mix was chosen to distinguish the habits of Pages with varying objectives on Facebook.
 
Category-wise break up of the sample (2.94 million) Pages:
 

Figure 4: Category break-up  in Sample

 
B.      Category-wise fan counts
 
Personal brand Pages led the Facebook revolution in the past 3-4 years with celebrities and public figures accumulating millions of fans and racing with each other to the top. This reflects in the statistics as well, with personal brands leading the statistics for average fan count.

Category	Average Fans Mar-12	Average Fans Oct-12	% change
Actor/director	11,622	13,371	15.0%
Community	3,163	6,148	94.4%
Company	7,429	4,881	-34.3%
Local business	6,265	2,687	-57.1%
Musician/band	12,406	14,854	19.7%
Politician	5,716	8,516	49.0%
Public figure	5,539	6,952	25.5%
Restaurant/cafe	3,868	2,222	-42.6%
Spas+	1,391	1,022	-26.5%

Table 4: Average fans per category

 

Figure 5: Average fans per category

 

• Personal brands (Actor, Musician, Politician, Public figure) average at 11,713 fans per Page, up from 9,144 in March

 

• Business category Pages have seen a steep fall in fan count – from 6,407 fans per Page to just 3,233 fans in October

 

• Top 4 ranks in average fan count belong to the personal brands, unlike in March when Company and Local business categories occupied the 3^rd and 4^th ranks

 

• The average fan count for community Pages has gone up from 3,163 in March to 6,148 in October

 

Fan count distribution
 

• 50% of Facebook Pages fail to get more than 300 fans. However, the mean fan count is 6,825 fans showing that a few large Pages are skewing the data

 

 

C.      Page activity
 
In spite of the presence of massive number of Pages on Facebook, not all Pages are actively creating conversations and managing their communities.
 

 
Our study shows that the level of activity is much lower and we applied three different criteria to measure activity levels:

i.              Posting habits
 
Experts recommend regular posting to a Page to get the attention of fans. However, not all Page owners can source content regularly or take time out to post every day (even though Facebook itself recommends at least one update per day)
 
Our study found that 70.1 per cent of Facebook Pages did not make even one post per month. Following table illustrates the posting habits across various categories:

Category	0 updates per month	1 – 5 updates per month	6 – 99 updates per month	100+ updates per month
Actor/director	67.2%	9.0%	18.5%	5.2%
Community	79.3%	5.6%	11.3%	3.8%
Company	73.5%	7.2%	17.8%	1.6%
Local business	60.6%	10.9%	27.0%	1.6%
Musician/band	54.4%	13.4%	28.5%	3.8%
Politician	54.5%	9.6%	30.4%	5.5%
Public figure	72.6%	7.5%	16.2%	3.8%
Restaurant/cafe	39.4%	15.1%	44.5%	1.0%
Spas+	31.1%	18.3%	48.7%	1.9%
Total	70.1%	8.2%	18.6%	3.2%

Table 5: Posting habits of various categories

 

• During the March study, we found that 82.3% Pages made 5 updates or less per month. This figure has only marginally improved by October, with 78.3 per cent of Pages still making 5 updates or less per month

 

• Community Pages show the least activity, with 79.3 per cent Pages making no updates at all

 

• Close on heels are the Company Pages with 73.5 per cent Pages inactive. This is especially surprising since data shows that the share of Company Pages on Facebook is only going up

 

• Pages selecting a more specific category name, e.g., ‘Restaurants’ or ‘Spas’, tend to be more active and focused on posting to Facebook. 45 to 50 per cent of these Pages make more than 5 updates per month

 

• Personal brand Pages have 3.5 to 5 per cent Pages broadcasting more than 100 updates per month, with Politicians leading the fray

 

Figure 6: Posting habits of various categories

 

ii.            Cover Picture
 
One of the most visually attractive features released by Facebook after March is the Timeline view with a panoramic ‘Cover Picture’ at the top. Like most features on Facebook Pages, cover pictures are free and one can upload / change photos any number of times. Cover pictures are regarded to be important to convert non–fans into fans.
 
How many businesses jumped at the opportunity and got themselves an attractive cover picture? The study shows, not many. Following table illustrates the extent to which cover pictures are underutilized.

Category	No Cover Picture
Actor/director	56.6%
Community	74.6%
Company	68.4%
Local business	54.7%
Musician/band	43.3%
Politician	47.8%
Public figure	65.5%
Restaurant/cafe	35.6%
Spas+	24.4%
Total	63.9%

Table 6: Cover picture usageFigure 7: Cover picture usage

 

• 63.9 per cent of the Pages studied did not have a cover picture. This is consistent with the posting habits above, where we found that 70.2 per cent of Pages did not make any updates at all

 

• Restaurants and Spas come up on top again, with nearly 3 in 4 spas and 2 in 3 restaurants uploading a cover photo

 

• Community category has the highest percentage of Pages with no cover photo, but it is also surprising to see Company and Public Figure categories with low adoption

 iii.           Participation
 
Another interesting metric we studied is the participation rate of Pages. This measures if a Page has participated in at least one conversation on its Page, whether the conversation was initiated by itself or by a fan. Participation can be done by liking, sharing, or commenting on a post or comment.
 
Pages that haven’t conversed with any of their fans aren’t helping their social marketing cause. Following table shows the ‘no participation’ rates of Pages across various categories.

Category	Not participating
Actor/director	82.4%
Community	88.9%
Company	85.3%
Local business	78.0%
Musician/band	74.3%
Politician	74.8%
Public figure	84.7%
Restaurant/cafe	61.9%
Spas+	58.1%

Table 7: Participation rates across categories

 

• Overall, 83.4 per cent of Pages studied ignored conversations on their own Page

 

• Spas have relatively better activity than others, with 41.9 per cent of Spa Pages participating in conversations with fans, at least once

 
Page Activity
 

• Less than 1 Facebook Page out of 3 is active in some way. 63.9 per cent Pages have no cover photo, 70.1 per cent make 0 posts a month and 83.4 per cent never participated in conversations. 50 per cent Pages also have less than 300 fans, indicating low levels of activity and popularity in general

 
Content and Engagement
 
A.      Content on Facebook Pages
 
Pages serious about making an impact on Facebook cannot ignore making regular posts. Page activity statistics show that only 29.9 per cent Pages post at least once per month. We studied the patterns of behavior and content preferences across categories.
 
Following table shows the posting habits of various categories in the sample of 2.94 million Pages:

Category	Average posts per month (Mar-12)	Average posts per month (Oct-12)	% change
Actor/director	31	24	-22.6%
Community	28	18	-35.7%
Company	15	9	-40.0%
Local business	11	11	0.0%
Musician/band	25	22	-12.0%
Politician	34	27	-20.6%
Public figure	20	18	-10.0%
Restaurant/cafe	18	12	-33.3%
Spas+	31	15	-51.6%

Table 8: Average Page posts

 

• Overall, Facebook Pages have become more inactive after introduction of Timeline view. The March study found that Pages made 21 posts per month on average, but the recent study shows that the average has fallen to 17 updates per month

 

• Politicians make the highest posts on average, followed by Actor/Director Pages

 

• Company and Local business Pages, assumed to be the highest stake holders in social media marketing, make the least number of posts at 9 and 11 on average

 

• Spas and Company Pages have witnessed a drastic fall in average updates from March, whereas personal brands in general and local business Pages have seen only a marginal fall

 

Since a large part of the sample contained Pages making no posts at all, we analyzed the average posting habits again, considering only Pages that made at least one post per month. The average posting numbers dramatically changed, when we eliminated the ‘0 update’ Pages.

Category	Average posts by active* Pages
Actor/director	73
Community	87
Company	35
Local business	27
Musician/band	48
Politician	60
Public figure	65
Restaurant/cafe	20
Spas+	22

Table 9: Monthly average posts by active* Pages

 

*       ‘Active’ Pages for the purpose of this table mean Pages which made at least one post per month

 

• Active Pages (which make at least one post per month) make 55 posts on average

 

• Active Community Pages make the highest number of posts per month with nearly 3 posts per day, followed by Actor/Director category

 

• Restaurants and Spas still rank low on average posts, with even active Pages making less than one post per day

 

Figure 8: Average posts by active Pages

B.      Content Type
 
Facebook advocates visual posts to increase engagement. After introduction of the Timeline view, visual posts have a much better impact. Content type mix for various categories is as follows. Only active Pages (Pages making at least one post per month) are considered for calculating the averages.
 
The table below contains the average posts of each type made by various categories.

Category	Photo	Video	Status	Link	Question
Actor/director	55.1%	3.9%	27.6%	13.4%	0.1%
Community	53.5%	3.5%	27.7%	15.2%	0.1%
Company	47.6%	3.9%	23.1%	25.3%	0.2%
Local business	44.7%	3.4%	28.8%	23.1%	0.1%
Musician/band	41.5%	11.4%	35.1%	11.8%	0.1%
Politician	45.6%	7.7%	24.0%	22.6%	0.1%
Public figure	51.3%	3.9%	32.0%	12.7%	0.1%
Restaurant/cafe	45.1%	1.8%	42.8%	10.1%	0.1%
Spas+	56.3%	1.5%	31.9%	10.3%	0.1%

Table 10: Monthly average posts of each content type

 

• There is a clear bias for visual content on Facebook as the table above illustrates

 

• Musicians and Politician show a higher preference for videos than other categories

 

• Company, Local business and Politician categories share more links than other categories

 

• Restaurants make higher status updates than the others at 42.8 percent

 

• All categories ask negligible number of questions

 

• Other types of content such as Offers, Stories and RSS feeds were not considered for the study

 

The table below reveals the share of visual posts (Photo and Video) in the content shared, illustrating the changing preferences of Pages.

Categories	March 2012	October 2012
Actor/director	18.3%	58.9%
Community	14.1%	57.0%
Company	13.8%	51.5%
Local business	15.8%	48.1%
Musician/band	14.1%	53.0%
Politician	17.2%	53.4%
Public figure	15.9%	55.2%
Restaurant/cafe	15.5%	46.9%
Spas+	18.9%	57.8%

Table 11: Share of visual content

 

Figure 9: Share of visual content in Page posts

 

• Across categories, 50 to 60 per cent of posts are either photos or videos. This is a dramatic increase from the 15 to 20 per cent level during March. Overall, there is a whopping 260 per cent increase in the share of visual posts. Clearly, Timeline managed to make a very strong impact on the content mix!

 

• Share of status (text) messages, which used to be 47.1 per cent in March, has fallen to 28.8 per cent in October

 

• Restaurants and Spas made fewer video posts compared to other categories

 
Content type
 

• Pages are quickly adapting to visual content after the introduction of Timeline, giving Facebook a reason to cheer about its acquisition of Instagram

 
 C.      Engagement rates
 
Engaging with fans is the primary goal for Facebook Pages. Engagement begins with feedback given by fans on Page posts in the form of ‘comments’, ‘likes’ and ‘shares’. Without conversations with fans, Pages are mere vehicles for broadcasting, like a one-way radio. Pages that manage to post interesting content regularly and appeal to their fans, get healthy engagement.
 
Following table shows the engagement rates that each category achieved during the period of study, compared to the observations during March:

Category	Engagement rate (Mar-12)	Engagement rate (Oct-12)	% change
Actor/director	1.07%	0.56%	-47.6%
Community	1.38%	0.33%	-75.9%
Company	0.74%	0.38%	-48.5%
Local business	0.55%	0.50%	-8.5%
Musician/band	1.02%	0.51%	-49.8%
Politician	1.15%	0.96%	-16.4%
Public figure	1.01%	0.50%	-50.6%
Restaurant/cafe	1.02%	0.84%	-17.2%
Spas+care	1.83%	1.23%	-32.7%

Table 12: Engagement rate per category

Figure 10: Engagement rates

 

• Compared to March 2012, engagement rates have fallen by 8.5 to 75.9 per cent across categories, with Community Pages being the most affected

 

• Spa category Pages outstrip everyone with a very healthy 1.23 per cent engagement rate, even though it represents a 32.7 per cent drop from March

 

• Politicians scored well to rank second for engagement rate. Clearly, the election season in the US has an effect!

 

• Community Pages get the least engagement at 0.33 percent and the engagement rate has fallen by over 75 per cent

 

Engagement Rates
 

• Engagement Rates have fallen by an average of about 40 per cent since March indicating waning popularity of Page posts. Pages need to change their approach to content and produce more engaging content and less marketing speak

 
D.      Engagement by content type

 
One of the

key assertions made by Facebook and social media experts is that visual content is more engaging for fans than other types. The dramatic increase in the share of visual content is also a direct result of these assertions.
 
We studied engagement rates[vi] by various content types to validate this.

Category	ER for Photos	ER for Videos	ER for Status	ER for Links	ER for Questions
Actor/director	0.72%	0.10%	0.18%	0.07%	0.03%
Community	0.40%	0.05%	0.14%	0.05%	0.03%
Company	0.48%	0.06%	0.12%	0.09%	0.02%
Local business	0.65%	0.05%	0.19%	0.11%	0.02%
Musician/band	0.59%	0.25%	0.26%	0.13%	0.03%
Politician	1.06%	0.20%	0.44%	0.28%	0.10%
Public figure	0.65%	0.08%	0.18%	0.06%	0.03%
Restaurant/cafe	1.12%	0.06%	0.38%	0.15%	0.03%
Spas+	1.53%	0.06%	0.54%	0.21%	0.05%

Table 13: Engagement rate for various content types

 
Clearly, photos seem to be getting much higher engagement than other types. On further analysis, we found that visual content (photos and videos) generated 65 to 350 percent higher engagement than non-visual content, across categories.

Category	ER – Visual content (V)	ER – Non visual content (N)	(V) / (N)
Actor/director	0.57%	0.18%	309.8%
Community	0.34%	0.13%	260.6%
Company	0.39%	0.15%	262.0%
Local business	0.51%	0.20%	254.8%
Musician/band	0.53%	0.32%	165.3%
Politician	0.98%	0.53%	183.3%
Public figure	0.51%	0.16%	319.6%
Restaurant/cafe	0.85%	0.19%	453.8%
Spas/beauty/personal care	1.24%	0.31%	396.0%

Table 14: Engagement rate for visual content (Oct 2012)

 

Figure 11 Engagement rates of visual content

 
A quick comparison with March findings revealed that this huge contrast in engagement rates is relatively recent. During March, engagement rates were not hugely different for visual content compared to other content types. Following table shows the results from March 2012 study:
 

Category	ER for visual content (V)	ER for non visual content (N)	(V) / (N)
Actor/director	0.83%	0.75%	110.2%
Community	0.62%	0.49%	126.8%
Company	0.38%	0.35%	17.0%
Local business	0.62%	0.87%	-129.1%
Musician/band	0.60%	0.76%	-121.9%
Politician	1.13%	0.70%	161.1%
Public figure	2.02%	1.31%	154.9%
Restaurant/cafe	0.74%	1.03%	-128.4%
Spas+	0.87%	0.72%	120.8%

Table 15: Engagement rate for visual content (Mar 2012)

 

• Engagement rates of non visual content like status messages have fallen drastically since March. There is only one obvious reason for this – the Timeline layout which highlights visual content over others.

 

• Even though engagement rates for Pages have fallen in general, visual content has taken an upper hand over non visual content. This trend is true across all categories

 

• Spas have consistently shown a higher bias for visual content and have gotten higher engagement too

 

Engagement rates of various content types

 

• With the arrival of Timeline view for Pages, visual content has become very important for engagement

 

 Conversation Score Analysis
 
Conversation Score (CScore) measures the effectiveness of a Facebook Page on four parameters – broadcasting, popularity, content virality and response to fans. CScore measures this on a scale of 0 to 100. More can be read about CScore here.
 
In the sample of 2.94 million Pages, we found that barely 13.6 per cent Pages crossed a respectable CScore of 40 (denoting 2 CScore stars out of 5). A massive 78.0 per cent of Pages had a CScore of 20 or less, indicating low level of activity and fan response. This again, is consistent with the inactivity levels we discussed earlier in the study.
 

Figure 12: Conversation Score distribution

• Restaurants and Spas score better than the rest with 28.3 per cent and 32.6 per cent Pages crossing CScore of 40 respectively

 

• Community and Company Pages are at the bottom of the table with barely 1 out of 10 Pages crossing the 40 CScore mark

 

Conclusion
 
With the introduction of Timeline view, Facebook aimed to make Pages more popular with both businesses and fans. However, due to high levels of inactivity from Page owners and also falling engagement from fans, businesses are still not able to use Pages effectively. With visual content giving much higher engagement than before, businesses need to change their content strategies to be able to fully utilize the opportunity to access a social network with over one billion active users.

 

Recommend.ly is back with a new study. This time, using Conversation Score (CScore) to measure if Walmart is living up to expectations with its 3,500 local store Pages.

Want to find out more? Here goes!

 

Walmart on Facebook

 

Is Local Market Engagement working?

 

Executive Summary

 

Walmart is betting big on local market engagement via social media with the launch of its 3,500 local store Facebook Pages. However, research by Recommend.ly shows that the main corporate page[1] continues to get all the attention from the brand and also from its fans. Since their launch in 2011, Walmart’s 3,500 local store pages have had very low consumer impact, when measured using the Recommend.ly Conversation Score (CScore).

 

Key Findings

The Facebook Pages that Walmart has established for its local stores are not popular with consumers. Only 4 percent of the local Walmart Pages have more than 1,000 fans,whereas CScore data shows that 22 percent of local businesses[2] manage to accumulate more than 1,000 fans. 54 percent of local Pages scored less than 20[3] on CScore, and only 3 Pages out of 2,799 exceeded a CScore of 50. In stark contrast, 27 percent of local businesses tend to score above 50. Meanwhile, Walmart’s main Facebook Page scored a respectable CScore of66. On its main Facebook Page,Walmart responded to fans on more than 22 percent of posts — a healthy number for a Page posting 5 updates per day. The local Pages, however, posted an average of only 1.24 updates per day,and 85 percent of the local Pages never responded to their fans.

Recommendations

Local stores should be allowed to control their content and localize the tone. Central teams should control only the calendar and set broad policy. Stores should also have access to social CRM systems to ensure they respond to Fans in time. Page performance should be quantified through scoring and tracked closely. Pages should have minimum score targets and be incentivized for high performance. Increasing fan count on local Pages through sustained campaigns and store visibility should be a focus area. Enticing existing fans from the corporate page to local pages will help.

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Analysis

 

Introduction

In a widely publicized move, retail giant Walmart partnered with Facebook in October 2011[4] to create 3,500 Facebook Pages for its local stores across the United States. Through My Local Walmart, the Bentonville, Ark-based mega-chain aimed to drive its (then) more than 9 millionFacebook fans (now at 19.5 million fans) to its local store Pages, and buildbrand loyalty with “enhanced local interaction at an unprecedented scale.” As might be expected, this news got the attentionof social media marketers worldwide. Walmart’s move also validated what experts have been advising marketers about social media – ‘you need to take it local and make it personal.’ Given the importance attached to the initiative by both Walmart and Facebook, Recommend.ly conducted an extensive study to discover how it has been faring so far. Measuring the success of the initiative will help other businesses emulating Walmart and validate Walmart’s objectives. Using its new Page-scoring tool – Conversation Score – the research team at Recommend.ly set out to study the My Local Walmart story on Facebook. The resulting trends reveal a lot about enterprise behavior on social media and make an interesting case study for other marketers.

Methodology

We mined a sample of 2,799 Walmart local store URLs, representing 80 percent of all its Pages on Facebook. (The rest of the URLs were hard to find, so we focused our attention on where the action was) The sample was then run through our new Page-scoring tool, “Conversation Score” (CScore) widget, which yielded accurate data for key engagement metrics. CScore collected publicly available page data for 30 days prior to the date of the study. Usually it takes just a few minutes to interpret and draw CScore insights for a single Page. Considering the size of the sample and the significance of the study, we spent a few days slicing and dicing the results. The results were compared to 1,884 local business Pages from CScore’s database to see how Page owners in comparable markets are performing. CScore results of Walmart Pages were analyzed for the following attributes: Fan count analysis CScore distribution Content sharing habits (Broadcasting) Virality of the content Responsiveness of the Page to fans Popularity of the Pages with fans What follows is a detailed analysis of Walmart Pages on each of the above attributes.

A. Fan Count Analysis

The Fan Count of a Page is a fairly significant metric for measuring its popularity. Fans usually respond to brands with a ‘Pagelike’ first, and then engage at a post level. Fan count trends of Walmart Pages reveal interesting facts about the popularity of Walmart’s localized experience on Facebook. Table1: Fan count growth of Walmart Pages Page type Fan count in October 2011 Fan count in August 2012 Incremental fans Walmart main Page 9 million+ 19.5 million+ 10.5 million Walmart local pages 0 2 million[5] 2 million   Observations: My Local Walmart was designed to move fan engagement from the corporate brand level to individual stores. However, in spite of the efforts, it is the main brand Page of Walmart that is still spearheading its case on Facebook. Only 1 out of 10 fans of Walmart have adapted to the localized experience. The local pages, all put together, have only 2 million fans, compared to nearly 20 million fans the main Page has. Since My Local Walmart was launched, the main Page managed to increase its Fan count by more than 10 million. Evidently, the move isn’t as popular with the fans as the brand would like it to be. Table2: Fan count distribution of 2,799 Walmart local store Pages Range (fans) Number of Pages Distribution % 0 – 100 266 9.64% 101 – 1,000 2433 86.92% 1,001 – 10,000 99 3.54% 10,001 – 100,000 1 0.04% > 100,000 0 0%   Compared to this, the local business Pages were found to be struggling to cross the 100 fans mark. But a higher percent could cross 1,000 fans or more than Walmart. Table3: Fan count distribution of 1,884 local business Pages Range (fans) Number of Pages Distribution % 0 – 100 659 34.98% 101 – 1,000 811 43.05% 1,001 – 10,000 342 18.15% 10,001 – 100,000 55 2.92% > 100,000 17 0.90%   Only 4 percentof the My Local WalmartPages have more than 1,000 fans. Compared to this, 22 percent of local businesses have more than 1,000 fans – 5.5 times more than Walmart. Clearly, the retail giant, with its might and muscle, can do better here. Only one local Walmart Page has more than 10,000 fans – 53,766 fans at the time of going to press. Interestingly, this is a store in Kodiak, Alaska – a town that has a population of 6,130 as per 2010 census. As it turns out, this rogue value is due to a prank and not Walmart’s own efforts. Some of the Walmart Pages appear to have been set up very recently, suggesting that there is a lot of work in progress. Figure 1: Fan count distribution – Walmart local stores compared to local business Pages on Facebook

Infographic 1: Popularity of Walmart’s local store Pages on Facebook

 

B. Conversation Score

About Conversation Score Conversation Score (“CScore”) measures a Facebook Page’s performance on a scale of 0 to 99. CScore analyzes four metrics representing the efforts of a Page owner and the corresponding results- a Page’s effectiveness at building engaging conversations (Broadcasting and Response to fans) and the fan response to its efforts (Virality and Fan Love).

Conversation Score (“CScore”) measures not just the Page popularity, but overall effectiveness of a Facebook Page as a social marketing property. To read more about Conversation Score, click here. Walmart’s main Page and its local Pages were measured for effectiveness using  CScore. To contract these results with a wider dataset, we compared these measurements with a larger sample from our own database of Facebook brand Pages. The results, again, show that Walmart local Pages have yet to gain momentum on Facebook. Observations Walmart’s main brand Page scored a healthy CScore of 66 and was rated a ‘Fan Favorite’, with 19.5 million fans and an extraordinary 7 percent active fans. (For Pages with more than 10 million fans, 7 percent active users is an excellent achievement. It is interesting to note,of the 124 CScore users with 10 million+ fans, only 2.17 percent of the fans were active) Brief analysis of Walmart’s CScore: Walmart’s main Page is very good at starting conversations with its fans. The Page scored high on broadcasting with an average 4.42 posts per day. In spite of the high number of conversations it starts, the Page still managed to respond to over 22 percent of the discussions on its Page, earning 4 CScore stars for Response to Fans. However, the fans do not seem to appreciate the quality of content. Fans of Walmart gave only 0.23 percent viral reach to its content, earning the Page only 1 CScore star for Virality. Compared to the relative success of the main Page, the local store Pages were found to be hugely lacking on CScore. Only 3 Pages scored CScore of above 50, out of the sampled 2,799. That’s about 0.01 percent! 53.8 percent of the store Pages had a CScore below 20. Another 45.7 percent scored between 20 and 40. Only 12 Pages scored between 40 and 50. This clearly demonstrates that the local stores aren’t being managed as well as the main Page. One possible reason could be that there is a whole army of specialist social media managers manning the main brand Page, whereas the local store Pages are managed by regional teams with less advanced social media skills. Compared to this, local business Pages have healthier distribution. 27 percent local business Pages have a CScore of 50 or above Figure 2: Conversation Score distribution – Walmart local stores compared to local business Pages on Facebook

 

Infographic 2: CScore highlights of Walmart’s local store Pages on Facebook

 

C. Analysis of CScore

 

Broadcasting     Measures the number of conversations started by a Page.

Broadcasting is important on Facebook to start conversations between the brand and the fans. Facebook itself encourages posting more than once per day to stay relevant on fans’ newsfeeds. However, there is no ‘right number’ of posts to be made by brands except for the general rule of at least one per day. Business objectives of a Page determine the number of posts to be made. Recommend.ly’s study shows that Walmart has a clear policy of posting regular updates to the Pages and drives the local stores to do the same. Table 4: Broadcasting habits of Walmart and local businesses Particulars Walmart Main Page Walmart Local Pages Local Business Pages Average updates per day 4.42 updates 1.24 updates 0.92 updates a. Status 7.5% 7.0% 16.8% b. Images 79.3% 89.1% 50.2% c. Videos 5.7% 0.0% 3.1% d. Others 7.5% 3.9% 29.9%   The Walmart local stores make an average 1.24 posts per day, compared to the 4.42 posts made by the main Page Local businesses lag on this metric. Content sourcing is still a problem for a majority of Pages on Facebook 95 percent of the stores scored 3 CScore stars or more for Broadcasting. This shows that these Pages are making regular efforts to start conversations.     Type of content Selecting the right type of content is important for Facebook Pages. There is a broad agreement among experts and brands that visual content brings the highest engagement. Walmart seems to believe that, and to a great effect: 85 percent of all updates on Walmart’s main Page are photos or videos. Walmart local stores, too, follow a similar trend – 90 percent of all the updates on local store Pages are photos or videos. Rest of the updates are either Links or plain Status updates for both main Page and local store Pages. The study did not find any questions or polls posted by the Pages during the 30 days under study. Along with visual content, asking questions is a great way to get fans talking.

 

Response to Fans Measures the Pages’ response rates to conversations on own Page

Posting regularly to the Page isn’t the end objective, and will not drive up engagement by itself. Conversational Pages tend to seize any opportunity to prolong the engagement and keep a popular conversation relevant for longer. For retail brands like Walmart, it is essential to score high on this metric because fans tend to connect with brands on Facebook for quick answers and resolutions to problems. The worst effect of bad response management is that disappointed fans quickly demonize unresponsive brands. Ignoring a fan’s query or (worse) suppressing it  can cause social media crises. Here is a recent example of a riled Walmart fan that could have been easily avoided with a simple response. Table5: Responsiveness – Walmart local store Pages Posts responded to Walmart Local Page Distribution 0% 84.70% 0% – 5% 12% 5% – 10% 2.90% 10% – 15% 0.30% 15% -20% 0.10% >20% 0.0%   CScore measured Walmart’s responsiveness on Facebook and found that there is a lot of room for improvement: The main Page appears to be on the right path, and earned 4 stars for its responsiveness. The same cannot be said about the local store Pages. A whopping 85 percent of the Pages never responded to fans engaging with them on Facebook. That is, 0 CScore stars. This could be among the biggest reasons for the low popularity of local store Pages. Only 2 percent of the Pages earned 2 CScore stars for their responsiveness. 98 percent earned just 1 star or none. Walmart Kodiak, the best local Page, comes on top for this metric with a perfect 5 out of 5 stars. Even the main Page lags this store in responsiveness. Pages that scored at least 2 stars on this metric have a CScore of at least 30.

 

Fan Love Measures popularity of the Page and fan activity

There seems to be a distinct lack of enthusiasm from the fans for the local store Pages and Walmart itself doesn’t seem to have made enough efforts. The Walmart main Page was always going to score high with so many fans and a high percentage of active users. The local stores fall short of expectations dramatically, with about 96 percent of Pages scoring just one star, mostly on account of low fan counts. The average fan count of local stores is at 563 fans per Page and 9.5 percent of Pages have less than 100 fans. Only Walmart Kodiak managed to score 3 CScore stars and 2 percent of the Pages managed to score 2 CScore stars for Fan Love. The active fan percent metric is a saving grace, though. An average 5 percent of fans tend to be active on the local store Pages, demonstrating that local fans are interested in staying in touch. Probably brand fans are finding it difficult to find their way to a local Page. Table6: Page popularity metrics – Walmart local stores and local businesses Particulars Walmart Local Local businesses Average Fans 563 4,207 Average Active fan % 5.2% 12.2%   Compare this to local business – both Average fan count and Average active fan percent are much higher than Walmart. Note: The Walmart local store Pages are expected to score low on ‘Fan Love’ metric because of the weight given to absolute fan count. It is understandably difficult for local Pages to hit the million-fan mark. Notwithstanding, most active local business Pages are found to score between 2 and 3 stars on Fan love, which only 2 percent of Walmart Pages managed to achieve.

Conclusion

Walmart appears to have a content strategy including posting policy in place. However, it is not evident that they have store-level targets for acquiring or engaging fans. At least, none that seems to be working yet. One particular observation is the use ofcentralized content strategy. This is probably contrary to the philosophy of localizing Facebook for fans. To localize the experience completely, even Page management has to be largely localized. To begin with, Walmart can immediately ramp up fan numbers for their local stores through targeted advertising and localized offers in exchange for Page likes. Walmart corporate is no stranger to rapid fan expansion, so the lessons need to be passed on to the local stores. Measuring Page effectiveness through CScore or a similar scoring tool at regular intervals will ensure that store Pages have a target to achieve and a reason to compete with each other. Social media effectiveness is hard to measure otherwise. Walmart should also employ a social CRM system to track fan comments and respond to them without fail. Recommend.ly’s daily reports automatically extract this information. The stores can manually track and ensure higher response rates. Local stores need to devise their own content strategy to customize their content to local fans, adhering to a broad policy controlled by the central team. Following a standard content library across Pages isn’t working.