The study by Napkin labs, says that very few brands know how to build an active and engaged community on Facebook.
Many brands focus on increasing their number of fans and posting content. However, the study reveals that a few active and engaged fans are worth more than the quanity.
Napkin labs looked at fan engagement across 52 Facebook brand pages for 2 months. Each page analyzed had between two hundred thousand and 1 million fans.
The study found that only 6% of their fans actually engaged with the brands during that period.
As a brand page’s fan number increased, their level of engagement did not always increase with it. The study revealed that "superfans," a brand’s top twenty most engaged fans, are more influential. Napkin labs says that one superfan is worth the quality of 75 fans.
"Superfans are vitally important to telling a brand’s story," said Riley Gibson, co-founder and CEO of Napkin Labs. "These numbers show that brand marketers need to focus less on the volume of fans and more on engaging the fans that they have. Involving engaged fans in richer experiences, rather than just pushing messages, is one key way to keep communities active and interested."
Only a small amount of fans were found to be active on their timelines and influence other fans at the same time. Superfans were found to have a big impact on how much other fans interacted.
The study revealed that the top ten most engaged Superfans had 2.3x more likes and 1.8x more comments than less active fans.
Napkin Labs says that brands should avoid superficial interactions like promotional messages or offers to help increase engagement.
Encouraging fans to share stories or experiences related to a brand will help drive engagement as well as giving public recognition to superfans.
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