Pizza chain Domino’s, clothing brand Bonds and theme park Dreamworld have topped a ranking of the top 20 brands on Facebook owned by ASX-listed companies, but the businesses still have a way to go in terms of engagement.
A Facebook Performance report, published today by digital agency OnlineCircle, found Dominoes had 850,790 likes on Facebook and an engagement score of 3.90%. This was followed by Bonds with 839,484 likes and 0.60% engagement and Dreamworld with 557,058 likes and 0.90% engagement.
The engagement score counts how often customers respond to a Facebook post by commenting or sharing it with others.
Of Australian department stores and online stores, Cudo had the most likes (28,687) for a post with a picture of an old $20 note and the tag “Hit the ‘LIKE’ button if you are old enough to remember when our money looked …”.
But Catch of the Day garnered the most comments with the post “Last comment wins. GO!” which attracted 27,552 comments on Facebook.
Jeff Richardson, chief executive at OnlineCircle, told SmartCompany it is crucial for businesses to use Facebook to engage with customers rather than just trying to amass likes.
“Too many of them tick the box of a Facebook page, think that they have it covered, start to build a few likes and get very excited,” Richardson says.
“Unless they are generating engagement, there is potentially more downside than upside to being on Facebook.”
According to Richardson, because of the legal requirements for businesses to monitor their Facebook page, they should evaluate whether having a page is worthwhile before creating one.
“If businesses create a Facebook page they immediately create risk so they have to create return otherwise the balance is not right,” he says.
“They create return by creating a stimulated audience for the page.”
Richardson says businesses should also be wary of Facebook’s use of EdgeRank to filter the content which appears in users’ news feeds.
“The implications of EdgeRank are that Facebook can interpret from the consumers actions how interested consumers are in your message and if they are not interested then Facebook stops sending your message,” he says.
“Edge Rank starts to weed out the banal or simple posts or the pages that are not at the top of the consumer’s interest.”
Richardson still thinks Facebook is vital for businesses but says they have to monitor their pages and posts, along with those of their competitors.
“It’s really important to monitor your posts, recognise which ones are resonating and monitor your competitors’ posts – look at which ones are working well,” he says.
“There were a number of pages [in the ranking] with high likes but low engagement and for me that suggests there is a missed opportunity.”
Cara Waters is the editor of SmartCompany. Cara was previously a senior reporter at the Financial Times website FT Adviser in London and has also worked for The Sunday Times.
