Social networks: size isn't everything
Ipsos MediaCT’s latest research shows that engagement across social media platforms is not related to audience size and Twitter™ means more for businesses than Facebook™.
Ipsos MediaCT’s “Social Heat Index”
The Social Heat index is a relative score for the success (or otherwise) of each of the brands across Facebook and Twitter. What we do is essentially:
- Take audience size (number of followers or fans) and interaction level (average number of comments/likes per post or average number of retweets or @ mentions per tweet)
- We then take an average of these (audience size and interaction level) to give us one percentage for Facebook and one for Twitter.
- Then we calculate a weighted average across the Facebook and Twitter figures to provide one overall percentage, which we’ve called the Social Heat Index.
“Size isn’t everything”
Facebook brings a more linear relationship between audience size and interaction than on Twitter (i.e. you get more interaction with a bigger audience on Facebook) but there are some learnings for brands on this kind of analysis. Look magazine, for example, has a much bigger audience than Grazia but a similar level of interaction per post. Fans of Look aren’t engaging with the posts from Look as much as other brands in the sector.
There is also much less interaction with magazine brands in general than with other media brands. Eastenders, for example, had over 2 million fans and received an average of 692 interactions per post during August, compared to just 25 interactions per post for our magazine brands. Brands that do well in terms of the level of interaction they receive tend to listen and respond to comments from fans, ask questions that resonate with their target market and have content that closely reflects their offline content.
Adapting to social media platforms
Audiences are engaging differently on Twitter than on Facebook or even other social networks. Overall, the level of interaction on Twitter tends to be lower than on Facebook. This, in all probability, reflects the different one to one nature of Twitter and one to many functionality of Facebook. A comment on Facebook can be easily seen by all members of a fan page and so provides a more interactive experience, with much more opportunity for conversation between members, whereas @ mentions or retweets on Twitter will only be seen by the account owner and followers in common between the brand and the ‘retweeter’.
Key learnings
There are some definite learnings for brands from this kind of analysis. Grazia for example has got its content right on Twitter: it has high engagement even though it is more of a niche brand than some of the other magazines. This is a reflection of its offline readership position; in the year to March 2011, Grazia had an average readership figure of 428,000 on the National Readership Survey (NRS) – smaller than all but More in our magazine set. However, its interaction level is high (over 20 retweets or @ mentions per post) compared to other larger brands.
What Grazia does very well is ensure that their posts are tailored to what they know their readers are interested in – there is a lot of upmarket fashion news which is interspersed with news about high street collections. Posting exclusive fashion and celebrity pictures is also popular. But what really set Grazia apart in our analysis - Heat is very good at this too - is the level of interaction they have with their fans. They listen carefully to the feedback they’re getting, re-tweet interesting or relevant posts from their readers and really engage on a one-to-one level with their readers.
It’s this kind of relationship which will help magazine brands to build up a real loyalty with their readers and help them to become a brand of choice in the longer term.
A spokesman for Ipsos MediaCT said:
“Our first Social Heat Index gives companies unprecedented quantitative data on their online profile, allowing them to concentrate resources on producing the best interactive experience. Whilst we can see that certain magazines have a large presence online many are not making the most of it. Creating engaging and interactive articles needs to be the focus for the future if the print media is to survive.”
