T H E A N AT O M Y O F A FA C E B O O K P O S T

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

S T U DY O N P O S T P E R F O R M A N C E B Y TYPE, DAY OF WEEK, AND TIME OF DAY

I.

INTRODUCTION a. Purpose b. Methodology c. Preview COMPARING TEXT, VIDEO AND IMAGE POSTS a. Aggregate Data b. Industry Data c. Hypotheses and Conclusions

TABLE OF CONTENTS

II.

III. COMPARING DAY OF WEEK a. Aggregate Data b. Industry Data c. Hypotheses and Conclusions IV. COMPARING TIME OF DAY a. Aggregate Data b. Industry Data c. Hypotheses and Conclusions V. SUMMARY

VI. WHO WE ARE

According to Mashables Facebook Factlook from February 2010,

It is fair to say, that there is little to no real science a marketer can turn to today to measure, iterate and manage social media efforts to provide fans and followers alike more effective messages and provide a return on investment. Certainly there are reporting tools, including aspects of Vitrues very own Social Relationship Management Platform, which measures aggregate fan data on a frequency basis. But that is not measuring or comparing the creative actions of the marketer. Marketers need actionable information and

INTRODUCTION

T H E AV E R A G E FA C E B O O K U S E R CLICKS THE LIKE BUT TON 9 TIMES, WRITES 25 COMMENTS, B ECO M E S A FA N O F 2 PA G E S , IS A MEMBER OF 12 GROUPS AND SPENDS 55 MINUTES ON F A C E B O O K D A I LY.
Marketers today are allocating a considerable amount of their operating hours and marketing budget toward social media initiatives to attract fans and engage them in a meaningful way on Facebook. Just one example of this is Gatoradess recently launched social media Mission Control team to monitor and manage social networks 24x7.

insights to determine the best way to develop and schedule a post to communicate to their fans and followers much in the same way marketers have measured response rates to direct mail, run a print advertisement on certain days of the week or selected day parts for a TV commercial. Marketing ultimately is a combination of art and science. Well leave the art to you, but what we provide herein is an anatomy of a Facebook post to help refine your test and learn social media publishing strategy.

There are a series of key insights summarized below that will be further expanded upon in the blog including charts and graphs that will bring the advanced mechanics of social media posting to life:

POST EFFECTIVENESS BY POST TYPE

Across all brands and represented business verticals, image posts are more engaging as measured by fan responses, likes and shares than video or text. There are variations by vertical that will be expanded on further, namely Quick Serve Restaurants versus Consumer Packaged Goods.

POST EFFECTIVENESS BY DAY OF WEEK

The post effectiveness varies considerably by industry vertical, but when all fan data was viewed in the aggregate, Friday posts generate the most engagement while Saturday and Sunday posts have the least engagement.

POST EFFECTIVENESS BY TIME OF DAY

A clear indication of variability in engagement by vertical is the differences between the entire data set and a single vertical like QSR. Posts made before noon get 65% more engagement than posts after noon across all fans served versus QSR that experiences 12% more engagement for posts made in the afternoon.

THERE ARE OTHER INTRIGUING AND COMPELLING ASPECTS TO OUR RESEARCH INCLUDING DIVING INTO A SPECIFIC BRAND BEHAVIOR TO SEE WHAT ENGAGEMENT VARIABILITY THERE IS AMONGST A TOP BRAND WITHIN A SPECIFIC VERTICAL. WHILE WE HAVE FOR CLIENT CONFIDENTIALITY REASONS OBSCURED THE SPECIFIC BRAND DETAILS, WE WILL SHARE SOME DATA THAT SHOWS INCREDIBLE VARIABILITY FOR LEADERS IN THEIR CATEGORY AND MARKET SEGMENT. LAST, BUT NOT LEAST, WHEN EVALUATING THE ANATOMY OF A POST, IT IS IMPORTANT TO ANALYZE WHO IS CREATING AND POSTING CONTENT; AND NAMELY WHAT THAT CONTENT IS. WHILE WE HAVE NOT PROVIDED THAT LEVEL OF GRANUALARITY HERE, IT IS AVAILABLE AND WILL BE PART OF A FUTURE STUDY.

METHODOLOGY
A quick statement about our methodology: Vitrue delivers messages, content and applications more than 265MM fans or followers through its Social Relationship Management (SRM) Platform for a wide-range of clients. We contracted a third party to analyze a subset of this data with a focus on Facebook post effectiveness. Specifically, we have analyzed publisher posts made from 5/1-8/11/2010 for more than 100 randomly selected streams or pages, representing 42.6 million Facebook fans (or 15.5% of total fans served) and 32,000 posts to present the following conclusions. Also, for purposes of defining certain terminology, below is a quick reference guide to key terms:

Engagement or effectiveness is measured by the gross interaction (i.e. comments, likes and shares) divided by the number of fans for a particular stream Time of Day will be segmented as Morning from 12 am to 12 pm and Afternoon is 12:01 pm to 11:59 pm CPG = Consumer Package Goods QSR = Quick Serve Restaurants

CO MPA RI NG TEX T, IMAGE POSTS

V I DEO

AND

As a general rule of thumb, marketers adapt their messages and content to different marketing communication channels. The content and format used in direct mail will not necessarily be effective for a direct e-mail. Also, within each marketing tactic, a marketer must determine the best format for that specific channel, i.e. email with HTML or text or variations of subject lines, which results in an extensive test and learn iterative approach to marketing effectiveness for a particular marketing tactic. While a great deal has been written about digital strategy tactics and techniques for SEO/SEM and email marketing, there is very little to guide a marketer on the most effective posting options for Facebook. There are three content publishing options for a marketer: text, image and video. As a caveat, each of these formats are supported natively by Facebook and do not necessarily require a publishing tool, like Vitrues SRM, to be posted daily. When we evaluated the data, there were clear findings on what was most effective for engagement across all fans studied:

IMAGE POSTS RECEIVED 22% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN VIDEO POSTS IMAGE POSTS RECEIVED 54% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN TE X T POSTS B U T, VIDEO RECEIVES 27% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN TE X T POSTS
This is to say, that image and video are superior to text-only posts, but overall image is certainly more compelling than video.

We further studied the nuances of post type by two randomly selected verticals, QSR and CPG versus the aggregate un-segmented data. When comparing these segments, the conclusions further edify how effective image posts are versus text and video.

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS

4.5% 4.0% 3.5% 3.0% 2.5% 2.0% 1.5% 1.0% 0.5% 0.0%
Image Attachment Video Attachment

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS CPG

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS QSR

Image Attachment

Video Attachment

Image Attachment

Video Attachment

Text

Text

Effectiveness is measured by the gross interaction (i.e. comments, likes, and shares) divided by the number of fans for a particular stream.

Text

A FEW COMMENTS AND HYPOTHESES ON THE ENGAGEMENT SCORE DIFFERENCES:

At some basic level, image posts being more effective than text is somewhat intuitive. After all, there is a reason for that colloquial saying about a picture is worth a thousand words. Video intuitively should also receive more shares, likes and comments than text given that it is presumably entertaining content Image surpassing video in effectiveness is more surprising although we have a few hypotheses as to why below.

Video is ultimately a more time consuming exercise for the viewer, and to some degree the marketer to create the content. That said, image and video posts are more effective than text and that requires marketers to move beyond the native Facebook publishing system to be able to create, schedule and manage their daily posts to maximize engagement with their fans.

THERE ARE FOUR NON-MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE POSSIBILITIES:

a) Creating good video content is not that easy. All of us have at one time or another attempted to be a videographer at family birthday or concert, only to find that the content is really not that watchable. All the factors that contribute to good content really matter: image quality, sound quality, content; b) Users need to dedicate more time for clicking on a video, and they are skimming more and more posts through the newsfeed. Images are immediately eye-catching, and not time consuming to view; c) A video has to be really good for folks to watch the video in its entirety AND share it with others; and lastly d) the rise of facebook interactions via mobile will hamper video plays for format length and other reasons. Suggesting to a friend to watch a video means you are asking for a possible 2-4 minute part of their day.

C O M PA R I N G D AY O F W E E K
Once a marketer has determined the content format to use for a particular communication effort, the next step in the process is determining day of the week to optimize the effectiveness of their communication effort. Understanding the customer is the first step, but more specifically marketers must understand how the customer makes a purchasing decision or would likely interact with your brand, product or business. Data analysis revealed the following factors regarding day of week post effectiveness for marketers on Facebook:

Overall, Friday gets the most engagement per fan than Sunday with 64% more shares, likes and comments; and 13% more than Saturday. However, Friday is only 7% more effective than Monday and 3%more than Tuesday and Thursday.

When comparing fans by vertical to see if there are variations in day effectiveness, CPG has some variations to the entire audience of fans. Specifically, Thursday is 136% more effectiveness than Wednesday, 51% more than Sunday and 18% more than Saturday.

However, when evaluating a restaurant sector like Quick Serve Restaurants, we see that Wednesday is 34% more effective than Sunday and 156% more effective than Saturday and 147% more effective than Tuesday.

Sunday Monday

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y D AY O F W E E K

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday Sunday Monday The variation in the post effectiveness by day for the vertical segments versus the data set representing all fans presents indicates a basic theory about vertical segments and brands within that segment performing differently. For instance, a fan is more likely to be interested in a post of a QSR in the afternoon particularly if there is a Facebook couponing opportunity for dinner, and is not likely thinking of picking up home products. It Sunday Monday also likely correlate to when

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y D AY O F W E E K CPG

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

companies within a segment post their most compelling (see post type) content and total usage of Facebook.

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y D AY O F W E E K QSR

Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday

0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5%
Effectiveness is measured by the gross interaction (i.e. comments, likes, and shares) divided by the number of fans for a particular stream.

COMPARING TIME OF DAY

The last component of evaluating the effectiveness of a post relates to the time of day a post is published. Similar to the analysis a marketer makes about the best day of the week, considering the factors of when something hits the Facebook news feed to be viewed by the majority of a brands fans is a critical factor. The newsfeed is moving more quickly now then ever; and the distinction between the Live Feed and Status Updates means that

M A R K E T E R S N E E D T O T R U LY K N O W W H E N A N D W H AT T Y P E O F P O S T TO PUBLISH TO CUT THROUGH THE C LU T T E R , A N D R E AC H T H E I R FA N S .

When evaluating the data, we split the day into 12 hour blocks of morning and afternoon/evening to simplify the discussion.

O N AV E R A G E , P O S T S M A D E B E F O R E N O O N G E T 6 5 % M O R E E N G A G E M E N T F O R A L L T H E F A N S A N A LY Z E D .
This correlates with the theory that people check Facebook first thing in the morning, quite possibly over a cup of coffee in the office, and before the days gets busy. This effectiveness was consistent across one of the vertical segments we analyzed.

CPG POSTS MADE BEFORE NOON RECEIVED 21% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN POSTS MADE IN THE AFTERNOON. HOWEVER, QSR POSTS MADE AFTER NOON, RECEIVED 12% MORE ENGAGEMENT THAN IN THE MORNING.
While this might seem like a small margin of performance difference, if a QSR restaurant can capitalize on a 12% improvement on a Facebook coupon posted in the afternoon to drive in store purchase, that would be meaningful.

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y T I M E O F D AY

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y T I M E O F D AY CPG

POST TYPE EFFECTIVENESS B Y T I M E O F D AY QSR

4.0% 3.0% 2.0% 1.0% 0.0%

Morning Afternoon Morning Afternoon Morning Afternoon

Time of day will be segmented as Morning 12am-12pm and Afternoon is 12:01pm-11:59pm.

Effectiveness is measured by the gross interaction (i.e. comments, likes, and shares) divided by the number of fans for a particular stream.

By applying analytics, research, and datathe same tools and applications we use for traditional marketing, we are laying the groundwork to make informed and calculated decisions about how

SUMMARY

to be effective on Facebook. We believe our released data will give marketers research-based strategies for optimal publishing effectiveness on Facebook. We will continue to evaluate data across the more than 265MM fans (and growing) we manage for our clients to provide ongoing marketing insights and data for brand marketers. An important step in effectively communicating on Facebook is understanding the what and the when we have addressed in this initial report. We found that image and video are more effective than text. Also, for most brands it is better to post in the morning while there are some nuances for certain verticals (QSR), that show afternoon posts are more effective. In summary, there is more to what we have started here including who posted and what (the context of the content they are posting). What we have provided is a simple study to help marketers get a handle on being effective within a sea of information.

ABOUT VITRUE
Vitrue is the leading social media management company focused on providing solutions for brands and agencies looking to maximize their presence across the vast social web. Anchored by its industry-leading Vitrue SRM (Social Relationship Management) Platform, Vitrue works with marketers of all sizes, from global brands to local businesses, as well as agencies large and small, to deliver a comprehensive solution to manage, measure and maximize value across Facebook, Twitter and other social environments. The Vitrue SRM Platforms four main componentsVitrue Tabs, Vitrue Publisher, Vitrue Apps and Vitrue Mobile deliver powerful creative, publishing, applications, measurement and mobile tools in a web-based interface. The Vitrue SRM is currently being used by global brands such as McDonalds, Best Buy, Kellogg Company, AMC Theatres, Project (RED) and 3M, to name a few. Vitrue has been at the forefront of social media in terms of innovating, developing and intellectually leading the way. We want to use our platform knowledge and best practices to aggressively drive social media forward and continually strive for ways to help shape this ever-changing, ever-growing medium. We are committed to moving the industry forward and will continue to provide our findings to help shape discourse and debate. Headquartered in Atlanta with offices in New York, Chicago, Cincinnati and San Francisco, Vitrue is a Facebook Preferred Developer Consultant and has received numerous industry accolades including the Red Herring Global 100 and OnMedia 100. For more information, visit www.vitrue.com.

ERIKA J. BROOKES Vice President of Marketing

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erika@vitrue.com VITRUE
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