11 ms·

Brand engagement is plummeting on Facebook

157 points by rblion 12y ago

arikrak 12y ago
What should companies use instead of Facebook to reach users with small updates and the like?
- pcurve 12y ago
  I'm seeing a lot of baffling names on the Top 10 list. What are all the aspirational car brands doing up there? And Intel? I doubt BMW or Intel is selling any more cars or chips because of facebook engagement. Their products mostly sell themselves.
  - judk 12y ago
    BMW products don't sell themselves, they are constantly advertised to push an image in your mind of their upscale luxury materialistic desirability.
  - hatsix 12y ago
    The companies are pulled from Interbrand's top 100 Global Brands 2013, then sorted by Engagement on Facebook. More info in the study we released last year: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/07/23/facebook-study/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/07/23/facebook-study/ (click the 'Download' to get to the PDF, look at last page.) I think what you're asking is, why care about these companies, when there isn't a single post that'll make a sale. The difference is the line between Advertising and Marketing... These are companies that had created content compelling enough to convince the public to engage with their Facebook Brand. They aren't there because they post the most, or because they spend the most... it's because their content engages the most. And it's the companies that were the best that were hit hardest. While these companies certainly use advertising, their brands had been strong enough to sustain engagement numbers that make you pause, and wonder what the hell is Intel doing that gets people to like/share/comment their posts more than BMW, Harley-Davidson or Starbucks. But you're right... ALL of these products mostly sell themselves... because they've built such a brand that it's hard to imagine anyone making a decision to NOT buy their product.
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    "Aspirational" brands are the absolute best fit for Facebook because a major differentiating factor between them is social signalling. For any practical use, the cars will do an equally good job. So am I a "BMW guy" or a "Mercedes guy"? Facebook is a great place to create and exhibit that sort of public identity.
- notatoad 12y ago
  What did companies do before facebook?
  - snowwrestler 12y ago
    Struggle to reach potential customers. Are you really advocating for a return to the Yellow Pages and direct mail postcards?
    - notatoad 12y ago
      As a consumer, yes. I don't need to be reached.
- aikah 12y ago
  This is not about Facebook or not Facebook,this is about not put all your money into Facebook.Truth is,Facebook is doing fine,but advertisers are getting less and less for their money on Facebook.Facebook is not Google.Social networks eventually die and people go somewhere else.
  - welly 12y ago
    I would love to know how Facebook could possibly die and what might replace it. Google+? Unlikely. It feels like it's somewhat unreachable. I'm sure that perhaps in 25 years time, something else will have replaced it but what and how, I would love to know.
possibilistic 12y ago
When every company under the sun is pitching to you, trying to engage you on a personal level, it seems like it would become tired and old. Maybe there was a point when it was novel, but now everyone is doing it. As the level of advertising increases, it seems logical to me that engagement will decrease across the board. There's only so much a person can handle before they become saturated. But what do I know? I don't use social media or willingly look at ads.
- doctorshady 12y ago
  Me either. It seems like we kinda reached that point a while ago where hearing "Find us on Facebook and Twitter" became so repetitive from a business that you really couldn't help but tune it out. That's just me, though.
- timdorr 12y ago
  This article is very sympathetic to the brand pages and wants to make Facebook out as the bad guy (which I'm not saying they aren't). But while they'll certainly make money by making pages pay for exposure, they also need to maintain as many eyeballs as possible so there's a supply to sell. The brand messages that were mixed in my news feed would usually be disruptive to me. I'd rather have them be an ad so that I can distinguish them more easily. It's a better user experience, which results in a larger supply of eyeballs. Boo hoo for the brands. This seems like a win for the user, in my eyes.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
gfosco 12y ago
This article reeks of cherry picked data and is written with a vitriolic bias. When you get to the end and "Fuck you, pay me" is repeated three times, it's a good reminder that you're reading some bullshit on the internet. Facebook is an affordable and effective place to advertise a brand, and it's worth paying much more than they charge.
- inthewoods 12y ago
  Well, I viewed the article as nothing of value - the actual study (done by Simply Measured) is more interesting. This article is nothing more than a republishing of the results with the vitriol that you rightly call out.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
AznHisoka 12y ago
"Build an audience that secretly belongs to a social media mob at your own peril, and don’t be surprised when the brands and publishers that own their audiences are the only ones that survive." Umm.... Buzzfeed's audience doesn't belong to FB. Neither does Upworthy's. Anyone can visit BuzzFeed.com without going thru FB. Anyone can receive an email link to BuzzFeed.com without FB. FB is just ANOTHER distribution method. It's a bonus, like search engines. Of course everyone wants to take advantage of it, if it's there. What the hell is this article even saying? Don't go to FB. It's an additional distribution method, that's all! Nobody is putting all their eggs in it.
- themonk 12y ago
  Audience does belongs to FB. See upstream traffic report of Upworthy. Alexa [1] says 50% traffic is from FB. [1] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/upworthy.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/upworthy.com
- TheBiv 12y ago
  I think the author is mentioning sites like Viddy.com that completely fell off the map when FB began to devalue someone posting a link from viddy
jwheeler79 12y ago
wtf is 'brand engagement'? does that mean likes and comments on a post? it would be great if either article spelled that out because if companies are just chasing eyes and clicks, that seems like a stupid game to play that could lose value as brand realize it doesn't necessarily mean conversions.
- CaveTech 12y ago
  Engagement on Facebook involves counting "Actions" users perform on the page. The main ones: Like, Share, Comment.
- hatsix 12y ago
  Simply Measured Engineer here! To clear up your question, we define Brand Engagement as: "The total number of likes, comments, and shares on Brand Posts that occurred during the reporting period." -- SM Help Docs I'm guessing that it wasn't spelled out in the post because Contently and our original article are primarily aimed at Social Media Marketers, and the definition is fairly well established. While the definition is established, we've published some articles that dig deeper into engagement: Looking into the different pieces/parts: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/11/18/likes-are-passive-the-3-strongest-forms-of-engagement/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/11/18/likes-are-passive-... and looking at a more relative number: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/02/19/facebook-engagement-rate/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/02/19/facebook-engagemen...
  - jwheeler79 12y ago
    maybe a hotlink to the def in future articles. this comment got a dozen upvotes fyi
batiudrami 12y ago
I've noticed that brands now post far too much stuff. Back in the day, if you 'Became a Fan' of a brand/band/organisation, you might expect maybe two posts a week, maybe less. Now liking a page means you can expect to be subjected to 5+ posts per day. No wonder people are hiding them from their feed/being more careful with what they follow on Facebook. People don't necessarily want to see 20.1% more posts from a brand than they did this time last year (and from a user end, it's good to see that Facebook is cutting it back). On a related note, recently my group of close friends created a group on Facebook, which was originally to help with organising events/activities (because group messaging was becoming unweildy and distracting). The requirement for adding someone to the group is 'would anyone else be upset if the new member invited themselves along to anything posted here', so it's relatively small - about 20 members. But we've been using it for about 3 months, and it has almost become a social network in itself - people post things during the day, we interact without worrying how it looks to outsiders, and there are no posts which are 'showing off' the way facebook status updates sometimes do. I'm not being constantly marketed to. Facebook is fun again - like it was in university.
- sheltgor 12y ago
  That's pretty much how I use facebook, though its in the form of a chat and related group, while I'm still in Uni. One or two chat threads with ten or so good friends each. Lots of great conversations, sharing, in-jokes, etc. Way more meaningful than my timeline or anything else on the site.
- ejain 12y ago
  I'd follow more companies on Facebook (or Twitter) if most of what they posted where product updates etc, not inspirational messages and fitness tips.
  - e40 12y ago
    Agreed. Before I follow someone on Twitter I look at their recent stream of posts. More than one or two a week, you don't get a follow from me. It's not worth the clutter in my stream.
- 12y ago
nraynaud 12y ago
That's quite a good news if that means less spam.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
Swizec 12y ago
If Facebook stopped promoting brands above my friends then maybe I'd stop unliking/hiding brands. Seriously, when I'm on Facebook I want to see people. One or two brand posts here and there is okay, but when I have to go through 10 brand posts to get to a real person that's a problem. My friends aren't going to pay your stupid "Promote your content" fees. Stop asking.
taurath 12y ago
What happens when facebook engagement as a whole starts dropping? My news feed is maybe 5 real posts, 10 "upworthy" style video shares, top10 lists and "brand" content. The whole thing feels useless, and all the things I actually care about are buried under ads and crapware. Events and messaging are the main usable portions of the platform - I only know a few people who use those exclusively, and once they're off I'm done with facebook entirely.
- sytelus 12y ago
  Ok... this is not ready yet. I'm working on it on and off but you might want to try out http://fbtidy.com http://fbtidy.com. The basic concept is to extract "real" status messages in FB. Rest of the things are in other tabs to checkout if you have time. Nothing is stored on server. The whole app is JS making client-side Graph API calls directly to FB. Code is here: https://github.com/sytelus/fbtidy https://github.com/sytelus/fbtidy Any feedback welcome.
  - bhouston 12y ago
    Great idea, but if it is takes off you will get a C&D from facebook unfortunately.
- aragot 12y ago
  New trend to expect: People are so afraid of posting their real status because of privacy, that you won't expect anything meaningful from your newsfeed.
  - pestaa 12y ago
    We like to believe privacy will be a determining factor but even most of my CS university friends don't give a damn about privacy. People need to burn their hands before they watch out for fire.
  - sharpneli 12y ago
    There is another problem. Namely not wanting to bother some segments of your contacts. Twitter and linkedin suffer from the same problem. As an example if I post something to facebook is it the sharpneli that loves to fish? Is it the one who plays esports at somewhat competitive level? Is it the one who posts an example how to do something with OpenCL? All of those circles are mutually exclusive and frankly posting something regarding esports would bore majority of my friends. Same applying to any other subset. That's why my own postings are always in sites that are very specific and focused on a certain topic.
malloreon 12y ago
This seems like a good place to ask: Why do people "become a fan" of a brand on fb? What value do people get from publicly declaring they like gatorade? I contrast this with the implicit declaration that occurs when I carry a gatorade bottle around, because in that situation presumably I'm enjoying drinking it. I cannot see how doing so would benefit a) me or b) my friends who might see that I like gatorade. It just seems like I'm a) giving fb more information about me and b) inviting gatorade to try and sell me things. Am I wrong or is becoming a fan of a brand just all bad for the user and all good for fb/the brand?
- the_watcher 12y ago
  >> It just seems like I'm a) giving fb more information about me and b) inviting gatorade to try and sell me things. Am I wrong or is becoming a fan of a brand just all bad for the user and all good for fb/the brand? This assumes that giving Facebook information to deliver ads for things you actually want is a bad thing, a position I disagree with. No matter how hard I try, I will be advertised to. I'd prefer to get ads for things I might actually want than a return to the lowest common denominator ads of the past (which tend to be things like diploma mills, insurance, or payday loans).
- JonnieCache 12y ago
  Some people just like the free dopamine hit from clicking on stuff.
- Spooky23 12y ago
  People don't see becoming a "fan" as a declaration of love for Gatorade. They see it as a way to win tickets or something similar.
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- wldcordeiro 12y ago
  Depending on the brand some people like to see updates from them. Of course this isn't true for all brands and like batiudrami said people get tired of how often many brands post updates.
quadrangle 12y ago
Well, that's some nice news, if mild. Cheers!
Gustomaximus 12y ago
I'd be interested to see how corporate engagement is shifting compared to overall engagement. Also to look at things in absolute numbers. Are people simple interacting less and this is a general trend across FB? Or are people just getting better at ignoring corporate posts? Also do we have a finite interest/time to interact? As every company flogs the FB horse, have we hit a limit to the number of posts we will interact with in total and this is just being distributed over a wider no. of companies? I was looking at FB social media marketshare the other day and was impressed how they continue to grow market share. Less engagement or not they remain completely dominent in this space: http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-social_media-ww-monthly-200903-201406 http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-social_media-ww-monthly-20090...
- hatsix 12y ago
  The assumption is that the majority of this downturn is because facebook has reduced how many users even see the content... given how closely it correlates to the FB News Feed Algorithm releases. Alas, FB doesn't expose views on normal posts, so we'll never know the actual numbers. The consensus seems to be that Brands should post more often, as their posts are only being shown to legitimate followers half as often... :-(
deleted 12y ago
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fbailey 12y ago
Let me explain, some parts of this, I have been working mostly as a UX strategist and growth hacker for a lot of startups and somehow I ended up leading a small social media consultancy and helping a lot of brands. (Don't ask me why - I have no idea - it just happened). Facebook has always been a very weird communication medium, it's the only algorithmic communication medium that people actually use. One truth about this is, that 99% of all brands and companies are not able to use this, because optimizing your communication and ads for an algorithmic model is too complex. Brand Communication has always been quite simple: Find some values you want to attach to your brand, find something creative that sticks and mix these values and your brand... then publish. Facebook is insanely complex, because you have a third layer: find something users want to interact with. Now you have three layers and those three are mutually exclusive for many brands. A Toilet paper company may find some ideas people want to interact with, but those ideas will probably not match their idea for their brand or values. And even if a brand finds a sweet spot between those three coordinates, they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot. This is something brands and companies are learning very very slowly, so Facebook is not really changing anything in a way, it's just adapting to the situation.
- hnnewguy 12y ago
  >Facebook is insanely complex... they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot. Inevitably when one of these articles crops up, someone "in the business" comes out of the woodwork to say, "Everything is fine, these brands just don't know what they're doing." I'm not sure I buy it. I dabbled in the space a few years ago, so spent more time than I ever intended reading about FB advertising. It seems to me that a long predicted issue is slowly developing: ad space and eyeball time are limited, so as people "like" more and more material over time, Facebook will have to cull and restrict to keep the news feed relevant to its users, most of which don't really want advertising. Facebook is not really changing? Am I to assume that with another year experience these social media teams got worse at doing the things you suggest? That's hard to believe. Sure, I'll bet that these teams can be doing some things better. On the other hand, how many brands are going to continue to spend money on a constantly evolving, unpredictable advertising platform that requires outside consultants to navigate properly?
Fuzzwah 12y ago
I wonder how much of this is due to people realizing that interacting with the types of people who are "engaged" by these big brands on facebook doesn't lead to interesting conversations? The small amount of such brand engagement I've witnessed has reminded me of the rule of thumb: "just pretend comment systems on large websites don't exist."
PaulHoule 12y ago
And who cares except for the brands?

157 points by rblion 12y ago

arikrak 12y ago

What should companies use instead of Facebook to reach users with small updates and the like?

pcurve 12y ago
I'm seeing a lot of baffling names on the Top 10 list. What are all the aspirational car brands doing up there? And Intel? I doubt BMW or Intel is selling any more cars or chips because of facebook engagement. Their products mostly sell themselves.
- judk 12y ago
  BMW products don't sell themselves, they are constantly advertised to push an image in your mind of their upscale luxury materialistic desirability.
- hatsix 12y ago
  The companies are pulled from Interbrand's top 100 Global Brands 2013, then sorted by Engagement on Facebook. More info in the study we released last year: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/07/23/facebook-study/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/07/23/facebook-study/ (click the 'Download' to get to the PDF, look at last page.) I think what you're asking is, why care about these companies, when there isn't a single post that'll make a sale. The difference is the line between Advertising and Marketing... These are companies that had created content compelling enough to convince the public to engage with their Facebook Brand. They aren't there because they post the most, or because they spend the most... it's because their content engages the most. And it's the companies that were the best that were hit hardest. While these companies certainly use advertising, their brands had been strong enough to sustain engagement numbers that make you pause, and wonder what the hell is Intel doing that gets people to like/share/comment their posts more than BMW, Harley-Davidson or Starbucks. But you're right... ALL of these products mostly sell themselves... because they've built such a brand that it's hard to imagine anyone making a decision to NOT buy their product.
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  "Aspirational" brands are the absolute best fit for Facebook because a major differentiating factor between them is social signalling. For any practical use, the cars will do an equally good job. So am I a "BMW guy" or a "Mercedes guy"? Facebook is a great place to create and exhibit that sort of public identity.
notatoad 12y ago
What did companies do before facebook?
- snowwrestler 12y ago
  Struggle to reach potential customers. Are you really advocating for a return to the Yellow Pages and direct mail postcards?
  - notatoad 12y ago
    As a consumer, yes. I don't need to be reached.
aikah 12y ago
This is not about Facebook or not Facebook,this is about not put all your money into Facebook.Truth is,Facebook is doing fine,but advertisers are getting less and less for their money on Facebook.Facebook is not Google.Social networks eventually die and people go somewhere else.
- welly 12y ago
  I would love to know how Facebook could possibly die and what might replace it. Google+? Unlikely. It feels like it's somewhat unreachable. I'm sure that perhaps in 25 years time, something else will have replaced it but what and how, I would love to know.

possibilistic 12y ago

When every company under the sun is pitching to you, trying to engage you on a personal level, it seems like it would become tired and old. Maybe there was a point when it was novel, but now everyone is doing it. As the level of advertising increases, it seems logical to me that engagement will decrease across the board. There's only so much a person can handle before they become saturated. But what do I know? I don't use social media or willingly look at ads.

doctorshady 12y ago
Me either. It seems like we kinda reached that point a while ago where hearing "Find us on Facebook and Twitter" became so repetitive from a business that you really couldn't help but tune it out. That's just me, though.
timdorr 12y ago
This article is very sympathetic to the brand pages and wants to make Facebook out as the bad guy (which I'm not saying they aren't). But while they'll certainly make money by making pages pay for exposure, they also need to maintain as many eyeballs as possible so there's a supply to sell. The brand messages that were mixed in my news feed would usually be disruptive to me. I'd rather have them be an ad so that I can distinguish them more easily. It's a better user experience, which results in a larger supply of eyeballs. Boo hoo for the brands. This seems like a win for the user, in my eyes.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

gfosco 12y ago

This article reeks of cherry picked data and is written with a vitriolic bias. When you get to the end and "Fuck you, pay me" is repeated three times, it's a good reminder that you're reading some bullshit on the internet. Facebook is an affordable and effective place to advertise a brand, and it's worth paying much more than they charge.

inthewoods 12y ago
Well, I viewed the article as nothing of value - the actual study (done by Simply Measured) is more interesting. This article is nothing more than a republishing of the results with the vitriol that you rightly call out.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]

AznHisoka 12y ago

"Build an audience that secretly belongs to a social media mob at your own peril, and don’t be surprised when the brands and publishers that own their audiences are the only ones that survive." Umm.... Buzzfeed's audience doesn't belong to FB. Neither does Upworthy's. Anyone can visit BuzzFeed.com without going thru FB. Anyone can receive an email link to BuzzFeed.com without FB. FB is just ANOTHER distribution method. It's a bonus, like search engines. Of course everyone wants to take advantage of it, if it's there. What the hell is this article even saying? Don't go to FB. It's an additional distribution method, that's all! Nobody is putting all their eggs in it.

themonk 12y ago
Audience does belongs to FB. See upstream traffic report of Upworthy. Alexa [1] says 50% traffic is from FB. [1] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/upworthy.com http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/upworthy.com
TheBiv 12y ago
I think the author is mentioning sites like Viddy.com that completely fell off the map when FB began to devalue someone posting a link from viddy

jwheeler79 12y ago

wtf is 'brand engagement'? does that mean likes and comments on a post? it would be great if either article spelled that out because if companies are just chasing eyes and clicks, that seems like a stupid game to play that could lose value as brand realize it doesn't necessarily mean conversions.

CaveTech 12y ago
Engagement on Facebook involves counting "Actions" users perform on the page. The main ones: Like, Share, Comment.
hatsix 12y ago
Simply Measured Engineer here! To clear up your question, we define Brand Engagement as: "The total number of likes, comments, and shares on Brand Posts that occurred during the reporting period." -- SM Help Docs I'm guessing that it wasn't spelled out in the post because Contently and our original article are primarily aimed at Social Media Marketers, and the definition is fairly well established. While the definition is established, we've published some articles that dig deeper into engagement: Looking into the different pieces/parts: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/11/18/likes-are-passive-the-3-strongest-forms-of-engagement/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2013/11/18/likes-are-passive-... and looking at a more relative number: http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/02/19/facebook-engagement-rate/ http://simplymeasured.com/blog/2014/02/19/facebook-engagemen...
- jwheeler79 12y ago
  maybe a hotlink to the def in future articles. this comment got a dozen upvotes fyi

batiudrami 12y ago

I've noticed that brands now post far too much stuff. Back in the day, if you 'Became a Fan' of a brand/band/organisation, you might expect maybe two posts a week, maybe less. Now liking a page means you can expect to be subjected to 5+ posts per day. No wonder people are hiding them from their feed/being more careful with what they follow on Facebook. People don't necessarily want to see 20.1% more posts from a brand than they did this time last year (and from a user end, it's good to see that Facebook is cutting it back). On a related note, recently my group of close friends created a group on Facebook, which was originally to help with organising events/activities (because group messaging was becoming unweildy and distracting). The requirement for adding someone to the group is 'would anyone else be upset if the new member invited themselves along to anything posted here', so it's relatively small - about 20 members. But we've been using it for about 3 months, and it has almost become a social network in itself - people post things during the day, we interact without worrying how it looks to outsiders, and there are no posts which are 'showing off' the way facebook status updates sometimes do. I'm not being constantly marketed to. Facebook is fun again - like it was in university.

sheltgor 12y ago
That's pretty much how I use facebook, though its in the form of a chat and related group, while I'm still in Uni. One or two chat threads with ten or so good friends each. Lots of great conversations, sharing, in-jokes, etc. Way more meaningful than my timeline or anything else on the site.
ejain 12y ago
I'd follow more companies on Facebook (or Twitter) if most of what they posted where product updates etc, not inspirational messages and fitness tips.
- e40 12y ago
  Agreed. Before I follow someone on Twitter I look at their recent stream of posts. More than one or two a week, you don't get a follow from me. It's not worth the clutter in my stream.
12y ago

nraynaud 12y ago

That's quite a good news if that means less spam.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

Swizec 12y ago

If Facebook stopped promoting brands above my friends then maybe I'd stop unliking/hiding brands. Seriously, when I'm on Facebook I want to see people. One or two brand posts here and there is okay, but when I have to go through 10 brand posts to get to a real person that's a problem. My friends aren't going to pay your stupid "Promote your content" fees. Stop asking.

taurath 12y ago

What happens when facebook engagement as a whole starts dropping? My news feed is maybe 5 real posts, 10 "upworthy" style video shares, top10 lists and "brand" content. The whole thing feels useless, and all the things I actually care about are buried under ads and crapware. Events and messaging are the main usable portions of the platform - I only know a few people who use those exclusively, and once they're off I'm done with facebook entirely.

sytelus 12y ago
Ok... this is not ready yet. I'm working on it on and off but you might want to try out http://fbtidy.com http://fbtidy.com. The basic concept is to extract "real" status messages in FB. Rest of the things are in other tabs to checkout if you have time. Nothing is stored on server. The whole app is JS making client-side Graph API calls directly to FB. Code is here: https://github.com/sytelus/fbtidy https://github.com/sytelus/fbtidy Any feedback welcome.
- bhouston 12y ago
  Great idea, but if it is takes off you will get a C&D from facebook unfortunately.
aragot 12y ago
New trend to expect: People are so afraid of posting their real status because of privacy, that you won't expect anything meaningful from your newsfeed.
- pestaa 12y ago
  We like to believe privacy will be a determining factor but even most of my CS university friends don't give a damn about privacy. People need to burn their hands before they watch out for fire.
- sharpneli 12y ago
  There is another problem. Namely not wanting to bother some segments of your contacts. Twitter and linkedin suffer from the same problem. As an example if I post something to facebook is it the sharpneli that loves to fish? Is it the one who plays esports at somewhat competitive level? Is it the one who posts an example how to do something with OpenCL? All of those circles are mutually exclusive and frankly posting something regarding esports would bore majority of my friends. Same applying to any other subset. That's why my own postings are always in sites that are very specific and focused on a certain topic.

malloreon 12y ago

This seems like a good place to ask: Why do people "become a fan" of a brand on fb? What value do people get from publicly declaring they like gatorade? I contrast this with the implicit declaration that occurs when I carry a gatorade bottle around, because in that situation presumably I'm enjoying drinking it. I cannot see how doing so would benefit a) me or b) my friends who might see that I like gatorade. It just seems like I'm a) giving fb more information about me and b) inviting gatorade to try and sell me things. Am I wrong or is becoming a fan of a brand just all bad for the user and all good for fb/the brand?

the_watcher 12y ago
>> It just seems like I'm a) giving fb more information about me and b) inviting gatorade to try and sell me things. Am I wrong or is becoming a fan of a brand just all bad for the user and all good for fb/the brand? This assumes that giving Facebook information to deliver ads for things you actually want is a bad thing, a position I disagree with. No matter how hard I try, I will be advertised to. I'd prefer to get ads for things I might actually want than a return to the lowest common denominator ads of the past (which tend to be things like diploma mills, insurance, or payday loans).
JonnieCache 12y ago
Some people just like the free dopamine hit from clicking on stuff.
Spooky23 12y ago
People don't see becoming a "fan" as a declaration of love for Gatorade. They see it as a way to win tickets or something similar.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wldcordeiro 12y ago
Depending on the brand some people like to see updates from them. Of course this isn't true for all brands and like batiudrami said people get tired of how often many brands post updates.

quadrangle 12y ago

Well, that's some nice news, if mild. Cheers!

Gustomaximus 12y ago

I'd be interested to see how corporate engagement is shifting compared to overall engagement. Also to look at things in absolute numbers. Are people simple interacting less and this is a general trend across FB? Or are people just getting better at ignoring corporate posts? Also do we have a finite interest/time to interact? As every company flogs the FB horse, have we hit a limit to the number of posts we will interact with in total and this is just being distributed over a wider no. of companies? I was looking at FB social media marketshare the other day and was impressed how they continue to grow market share. Less engagement or not they remain completely dominent in this space: http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-social_media-ww-monthly-200903-201406 http://gs.statcounter.com/#all-social_media-ww-monthly-20090...

hatsix 12y ago
The assumption is that the majority of this downturn is because facebook has reduced how many users even see the content... given how closely it correlates to the FB News Feed Algorithm releases. Alas, FB doesn't expose views on normal posts, so we'll never know the actual numbers. The consensus seems to be that Brands should post more often, as their posts are only being shown to legitimate followers half as often... :-(

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

fbailey 12y ago

Let me explain, some parts of this, I have been working mostly as a UX strategist and growth hacker for a lot of startups and somehow I ended up leading a small social media consultancy and helping a lot of brands. (Don't ask me why - I have no idea - it just happened). Facebook has always been a very weird communication medium, it's the only algorithmic communication medium that people actually use. One truth about this is, that 99% of all brands and companies are not able to use this, because optimizing your communication and ads for an algorithmic model is too complex. Brand Communication has always been quite simple: Find some values you want to attach to your brand, find something creative that sticks and mix these values and your brand... then publish. Facebook is insanely complex, because you have a third layer: find something users want to interact with. Now you have three layers and those three are mutually exclusive for many brands. A Toilet paper company may find some ideas people want to interact with, but those ideas will probably not match their idea for their brand or values. And even if a brand finds a sweet spot between those three coordinates, they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot. This is something brands and companies are learning very very slowly, so Facebook is not really changing anything in a way, it's just adapting to the situation.

hnnewguy 12y ago
>Facebook is insanely complex... they have to use right technique and be insanely creative to stay in that spot. Inevitably when one of these articles crops up, someone "in the business" comes out of the woodwork to say, "Everything is fine, these brands just don't know what they're doing." I'm not sure I buy it. I dabbled in the space a few years ago, so spent more time than I ever intended reading about FB advertising. It seems to me that a long predicted issue is slowly developing: ad space and eyeball time are limited, so as people "like" more and more material over time, Facebook will have to cull and restrict to keep the news feed relevant to its users, most of which don't really want advertising. Facebook is not really changing? Am I to assume that with another year experience these social media teams got worse at doing the things you suggest? That's hard to believe. Sure, I'll bet that these teams can be doing some things better. On the other hand, how many brands are going to continue to spend money on a constantly evolving, unpredictable advertising platform that requires outside consultants to navigate properly?

Fuzzwah 12y ago

I wonder how much of this is due to people realizing that interacting with the types of people who are "engaged" by these big brands on facebook doesn't lead to interesting conversations? The small amount of such brand engagement I've witnessed has reminded me of the rule of thumb: "just pretend comment systems on large websites don't exist."

PaulHoule 12y ago

And who cares except for the brands?