Despite the fact that DDB Opinionway’s survey covers just 1,642 Facebook ‘likers’, the results still throw up a lot of valid insights.
1. Top 3 sectors – causes support at No. 2! The top 3 ‘liked’ sectors (slide 46) were Media & entertainment (55%), causes support (51%) and fashion & luxury goods (46%). FMCG is way down the list, with 8%. Media & entertainment, as a sector, offers connections to other fans of those brands (actors, films etc) besides possibly giving access to stars hitherto seen as unapproachable. Causes support is a huge win and it is heartening to see it at No. 2 – a platform like Facebook unites people around specific causes and generally removes time, distance and geographical boundaries from supporting a cause. Fashion and luxury goods get an aspirational plank on Facebook and if done right, can help retain that appeal (through content) and still broad-base their outreach.
2. Current users are more active followers…compared to prospective users! Only 3% of the participants say they followed a brand on Facebook that they have never used and which they intend to use in the future (slide 48). Against that, 47% of brand followers are that brand’s regular users and 37% of ‘likers’ say they use the ‘liked’ brand occasionally. This is strange and seems to indicate that existing customers are far more active in liking brands on Facebook – significantly more than people who plan invest or aspire for a brand. These numbers belie the effort put into by brands to woo prospective customers, but in the absence of any significant numbers to back that, I can only call this number ‘strange’ and not ‘factually incorrect’ – that is, it remains my opinion.
3. Advertising gets the most ‘likes’ 75% of the participants like a page through advertising, while 59% liked it through a friend’s invitation. Personal research that led to liking was way down at 49% (slide 50). This is a very real insight and indicates that as long as the advertising unit has something even reasonably interesting, any kind of page can build on the numbers. What is more important is not merely building those numbers and just watch the bean counter to satisfy marketing egos, but to look at ways to retain those followers’ interest levels by working on engaging content. Why? See point 6, below.
4. Fans want brands to treat them specially on Facebook – interaction is lower down priority! That manifests itself in the other slide (slide 53), which says ‘being treated in a special way by the brand’ is the most important reason why people follow a brand. 53% of participants choose this as their top priority, while 48% say that being the brand’s spokesperson is the most important reason they joined that page. Talking to the brand or interacting with it is at a distant third, at 28%! So, while engagement is important from a conversion point of view (from online likes to eventually offline purchase intent/consideration), interesting campaigns to treat the likers specially. But this is much like the burst of affection shown to people who walk into your store and is not the main tactic, in my opinion.
5. Should brands incentivize the act of liking? Slide 65 talks about the need to incentivize liking that brand on Facebook – 83% say they look for exclusives/benefits as the main way to improve brand pages. This is interesting and goes off tangent with the real store visit example (if you equate liking online to a store visit), because, in real like, a brand has to invest significantly for create a store and thus people visit for purchase consideration or to add the brand in the purchase intent and do research. Online, considering the cost is almost nothing, people seem to assume that it gives them a right to look for exclusive benefits – to make good for the time they spend on the brand’s Facebook page.
6. Are you ready for the ‘unlike’? The slides on brand-unsubscribe (unlike?) too are interesting! Slide 72 talks of 36% of all participants having already unsubscribed from a brand page. Reason? That’s in slide 73 – 32% say they were no longer interested in the brand while 27%, surprisingly, said that the information published was too frequent! The former simply reveals the fickle nature of interest in brand pages – easy to get in; as easy to get out – while the latter perhaps indicates that brands should plan their content carefully in a way that it sustains interest and also doesn’t bombard followers with information.