Study finds that most brands who have been participating in Facebook Timeline for brands are seeing early success
While the average Facebook user may still not have made the switch to the social network’s new Timeline format, as of March 30, 2012, all brand pages were required to do so, and some brands have been seeing increased engagement as a result.
Social media measurement company Simply Measured looked at 15 brand pages that were early adopters of the Timeline format and found that average engagement on brand posts (i.e., comments and “likes”) rose 46% in the three weeks after the switch compared to the three weeks before. Prior to the Timeline introduction, the 15 brand pages saw an average of 1,672 points of engagement per post, rising to 2,441 after switching to Timeline.
However, when Simply Measured looked at individual brands, several companies, including Old Spice, Target, AT&T and Ford, saw less engagement with brand posts, which is in line with March data from Wildfire Interactive. The social media marketing software company looked at 43 brand pages, also in the three weeks before and after the Timeline introduction, and found that brands with more “likes” overall were often negatively affected by Timeline.
Coca-Cola's Facebook timeline page (Click Image To Enlarge)
According to Wildfire Interactive, for brands with less than 1 million “likes,” comments per brand post grew 40% and “likes” per post rose 60.3%. The “People Talking About This” metric also increased, up 67.4%. For brands with between 1 million and 10 million fans, comments per brand post dipped 17.43%, while “likes” per post and “People Talking About This” both increased, by 13.56% and 28.58%, respectively. For brands with more than 10 million fans, all metrics declined, with “People Talking About This” down 13.72%, comments down 16.72% and “likes” down 11.57%.
Even more recently, in April, EdgeRank Checker, a Facebook analytics tool, released its own analysis of Facebook pages before and after their switch to Timeline, looking at 3,500 pages that both had and had not converted to Timeline. Of those pages that had converted to Timeline, 41% saw increased engagement and fans, while 38% of those pages that had not converted also saw increased engagement and fans, suggesting no substantive difference.
The company said in a blog post about the findings.
“A vast majority of all engagement takes place within the News Feed…[and] Timeline has no direct impact on content within the News Feed.”
EdgeRank Checker attributed the changes in fans and engagement to the buzz and media coverage surrounding Facebook and, in particular, the switch to Timeline.
It is a bit too early to determine exactly how Timeline will affect brand outreach on Facebook going forward. For now, it seems users are still participating and engaging on Facebook and are curious about the new format when it comes to brand pages. But whether or not Timeline can maintain their curiosity will be an ongoing question.
COMMENTARY: On Friday, March 30, 2012, all brand pages were automatically ported over to the new Timeline setup.
The announcement that Time would come to all brand pages was made in late February and gave all businesses 30 days to start thinking about how they would like to design their pages with the multimedia focus.
In order to help companies, Facebook built a guide to the structure for companies to make the switch as smoothly as possible.
This means that all the companies that once enjoyed the welcome page that could be set for fan pages is now no more. Many brands were drawn to the welcome page setup because it allowed them to promoted contests, sales, games or other campaigns. Now the biggest element on a brand page is the cover photo.
But all of those companies worried that their Facebook traffic numbers might suffer from the change could ease that fret with word is that the new Timeline set-up is boosting user engagement by 46% according to social media measurement company Simply Measured.
The study conducted by Simply Measured, has reduced the fears that many companies had about changing their social networking pages.
The study found that when it looked at the user engagement of 15 brand pages, the shift from the old Facebook layout to the new Timeline structure resulted in a jump in various types of user engagement. Some companies, such as Livestrong and Toyota experienced a 161% and 156% pop in engagement, respectively.
Whether this the bump in user engagement unveiled by Simply Measured is just a temporary bump in engagement caused by user curiosity over Facebook timeline remains to be seen. I am sure that Facebook will continue to keep a close eye on Timeline for any trends affecting user engagement.
When Facebook first announced Timeline, I like many social media scientists felt that it was much ado about nothing, and that it would only bore the hell out of users. If a brand's homepage does not connect with users within 30 seconds after they visit that brands page, chances pretty good that they will move on to something more interesting.
If you are already a brand fan, I could see where Tmeline might drive user engagement, especially if you don't visit all that often and interested in knowing what went on with your favorite brands since you last logged in or visited their Facebook page.
Courtesy of an article dated April 25, 2012 appearing in eMarketer
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