Social Media Marketing: A Facebook Comparison

The success of social media marketing, and Facebook marketing in particular, is very difficult to measure. Facebook does try to give you its own measure, by telling you how many fans a company has. But in social media marketing, the company with the most fans on Facebook isn’t necessarily the most successful.

We had a look at the Facebook pages of two of Ireland’s biggest mobile networks, 02 and Meteor to see how their social media marketing activity compares to the response from customers. Both these companies target their products at the younger generations who see Facebook as a central part of their lives. And both companies invest a lot of time in their social media marketing campaigns.

The first thing that strikes you in the comparison is that Meteor have a vastly superior number of fans, 91,806 compared to O2’s 43,587. This shows that in social media marketing, overall market share isn’t always a factor as O2 have a much larger share of the mobile market.

Meteor’s extra fans have, in part at least, been generated by their higher level of activity. Meteor average 1.3 posts per day, but O2 post only 0.5 times a day. Meteor also has a higher variety in what they post and post mostly photos. O2 on the other hand focus their posts on links. But all these figures, don’t mean Meteor have the most successful social media marketing campaign.

The success of social media marketing comes from engagement and O2 are way ahead in terms of engagement. While Meteor has a higher level of fan engagement in figures, their engagement accounts for 1% of their fans whereas O2 get engagement from 2% of their fans.

The breakdown of this engagement is also interesting from a social media marketing perspective. Despite the lower level of engagement and less fans, O2 actually get more post ‘likes’ than Meteor, averaging 81 per post, compared to Meteor’s 31.

Both of these companies are successful in their social media marketing campaigns on Facebook. These figures don’t definitively prove one company’s marketing is better than the other. But it does give one clear indication. When it comes to engagement, quality of posts may be more important than quantity. And when it comes to social media marketing, engagement is vital.

Many businesses are switching on to the opportunities of social media…not only for growing their online presence, but also for growing their business in general. Facebook Pages are now an essential part of an integrated online presence. Now is the time to audit your Facebook Pages using this comprehensive checklist of best practices and the associated success factors. Download your Facebook checklist now.

If you would like a similar free report for your facebook page, simply email [email protected] for details…