#exploringsocial: facebook for fmcg brands

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#EXPLORING SOCIAL

FACEBOOK FOR FMCG BRANDS

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to our Facebook for FMCG brands report.

This report stemmed from the realisation that we have been sitting on a wealth of data that could be of real interest to brands around the world. This is our first in a series of reports that attempt to make sense of it, outlining our key findings and pulling out actionable insights for how you can really push forward with your social media presence.

This report focuses on Facebook, for FMCG brands - covering audience, content, reach, and engagement, using data from 16 of our FMCG clients. The aim is to use the depth of our data to uncover key learnings in each of these areas and look at the state of play for Facebook as we move into 2016.

Any questions, feel free to get in touch

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

Welcome to the first report in our #ExploringSocial series, which will cover Facebook for FMCG brands.

This report stemmed from the realisation that we are tapped into a wealth of data on a daily basis that could be of real interest to brands around the world. This is our first in a series of reports that attempt to make sense of it, outlining our key findings and pulling out actionable insights for how you can really push forward with your social media presence.

This report focuses on Facebook for FMCG brands. We have used a sample set of 19 FMCG brands on Facebook that are representative of the sector, including beverages, breakfast, snacks, alcohol and beauty products. The combined audience size of all the brands we looked at was 447,147 - representing an average audience size of 23,534. The aim is to use the depth of our data to unlock key learnings covering audience, content, reach, and engagement, looking at the state of play for Facebook as we move into 2016.

INTRODUCTION


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

https://twitter.com/bebornsocial

http://twitter.com/@callummccahon

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23ExploringSocial&src=typd

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INTRODUCTION

Welcome to our Facebook for FMCG brands report.

This report stemmed from the realisation that we have been sitting on a wealth of data that could be of real interest to brands around the world. This is our first in a series of reports that attempt to make sense of it, outlining our key findings and pulling out actionable insights for how you can really push forward with your social media presence.

This report focuses on Facebook, for FMCG brands - covering audience, content, reach, and engagement, using data from 16 of our FMCG clients. The aim is to use the depth of our data to uncover key learnings in each of these areas and look at the state of play for Facebook as we move into 2016.


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

.

According to the CMO Survey (Feb 2015), Social Media currently accounts for 9.5% of the average marketing budget for a B2C Product, with this figure forecast to grow to 20.5% over the next five years. It’s clear that brands understand the value of social - it’s now a case of ensuring that you are using it to its maximum potential. 35 to 40 million Brits are active on Facebook every month and this is only set to increase. In a social landscape where a video of a cat falling down the stairs will generate millions of likes, shares and views; what can a brand do to make their voice heard above the noise?

We will show you how to engage a wider audience with a variety of diverse and engaging content that could be the difference between a post falling flat and a post engaging a new consumer. The findings in this report can act as a stepping stone to unlocking engagement with your target audience - which is the dream for any brand, no matter the size.

We’ve included a glossary for all of the more ‘technical’ terms. If you see an asterisk next to a word, check out the glossary at the end of the report for our definition. Enjoy the report!

Callum McCahon, Senior Strategist

CONT..


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@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

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INTRODUCTION

CONTENTS

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• The average FMCG audience on Facebook predominantly consists of females aged between 25-34. Women are 13.7% more likely to like a brand on Facebook than men, and they are 43.1% more likely to like an FMCG brand on Facebook than a man.

• The younger the demographic, the less likely they are to like brands on Facebook. We found that social media users between the ages of 18 and 24 are 11% less likely than 25-34 year olds to like a brand on Facebook, and 21% less likely to like an FMCG brand in particular.

• Competitions are the most popular form of content*, followed by ‘lifestyle’ content. Content featuring product does not perform as well. The best content strategy is a blended approach - creating content that hits all three areas.

• One share from an Influencer* is more valuable than a high volume of low impact shares (that of an average user with no remarkable following) when looking to achieve virality.

• Organic Reach* has more than halved in the last 24 months, dropping from 17.8% of audience reached per post in December 2013, to just 6.4% in December 2015. We’re well and truly in the era of pay to play.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

• You can maximise your Organic Reach through video content, which - on average - allows you to reach 8.84% of your audience per post.

• The peak time that a Facebook user in the average FMCG audience is active and online is 9pm. This is when 49.84% of the average FMCG audience are online. Posting a couple of hours before this will help content to take advantage of this, in order to gain momentum.

• Engagement Rates* on Facebook appear to be falling. Our average engagement rate for FMCG brands in 2015 was 7.80%, compared to 9.73% in 2014. This could signal that audiences are less willing to engage with brands on Facebook meaning that brands need to do more to add real value.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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One golden rule that we live by at BORN SOCIAL is that when choosing your social media platforms for a brand, you should fish where the fish are. This means that you should only be active on a platform if the people you are trying to reach actually use it, otherwise what is the point? Bearing this in mind, our first question is about audience: what is the typical audience for an FMCG brand on Facebook?

AUDIENCE01

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WHAT IS THE TYPICAL AUDIENCE FOR FMCG BRANDS ON FACEBOOK?

For this research, we collated the data from a selection of FMCG brands active on Facebook, with the aim of understanding what the typical audience for FMCG brands looks like. We excluded any brands from our data set that had clear age restrictions, for example, alcohol brands.

AUDIENCE01@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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AUDIENCE01

FINDINGS - Average audience age & gender

• 25-34 is the key demographic for Facebook. 35.04% of our total audience were in this age group.

• 35-44 is the second largest demographic, accounting for around a quarter (24.30%) of the audience.

• 18-24 is the third largest, consisting of 16.16%.

• 72.99% of our audience are women, compared to 26.28% being men.

30%

20%

10%

13-17 18-24 25-34 35-44 45-54

FemaleMale

55-64 65+

0%

Age

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INSIGHTS

AUDIENCE01

We can see a heavy skew in our audience in favour of women, especially when we compare our figures to the overall UK audience on Facebook, which is made up of 51% women. For the sake of comparison, we collected data from a wider sample set of 50 UK brands active on Facebook, across a wide variety of sectors - not limited to FMCG. According to our sample set, we found that:

• Women are 13.7% more likely to like a brand on Facebook than men, and they are 43.1% more likely to like an FMCG brand on Facebook than a man.

• 25-34 year olds are 11% more likely to like a brand on Facebook than 18-24 year olds, and they are 21% more likely to like an FMCG brand than 18-24 year olds.

This data suggests that Facebook has an ageing demographic - those aged 18-24 in general aren’t as willing to like and engage with brands on Facebook as older groups. This suggests that different age groups use the platform in different ways. Whereas older demographics see interacting with brands as a part of the platform, younger demographics see the platform in a different way. For example, using the platform as a utility for managing their friends with features like groups, messaging, and events.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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Content* is the bread and butter of your social presence, it’s what you put out on a day to day basis and what will generate engagement and brand awareness. Deciding what type of content to go for can often be quite a daunting process, and so our next section tackles this head on. We have posed two questions; what is the most effective type of content and what is the key to making a piece of content go ‘viral’?

CONTENT02

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WHAT IS THE BEST TYPE OF CONTENT FOR AN FMCG BRAND?

In order to identify what type of content works the best on Facebook for an FMCG brand, we collated content from our sample set of FMCG brands over the last three months (October-December), giving us a sample size of 500. We then ranked this content by Engagement Rate* (the percentage of people who saw the post that engaged with it) and took every piece of content that received an engagement rate that was higher than average (7.8%) and reached over 300 users, leaving us with 91 pieces of content. Each piece of content has been classified into one of three categories:

• Product content: Content that features the product itself, in whatever form. This could be a photo of the packaging, or the product being used.

• Lifestyle content: Content that goes beyond the product, tapping into the wider ‘lifestyle’ of the target audience. For example, this could include healthy eating tips, or Christmas content.

• Competitions: Content that is a competition in some form. For example, this could include a comment-to-win style competition, or a user generated content competition where people upload a photo to win.

CONTENT02@bebornsocial

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WHAT IS THE BEST TYPE OF CONTENT FOR AN FMCG BRAND?

It should be noted that it is possible for one piece of content to be in more than one category. An example of this is a product piece of content that is positioned in a lifestyle way, or a competition that offers the product as a prize. In these cases, we classified the content in each of the relevant categories.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

Product Lifestyle Competition




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CONTENT02

FINDINGS - Highly engaging content

• Competitions are the most engaging form of content. 39% of posts that received over average engagement featured a competition.

• Lifestyle is the second most engaging style of post, with 33% of high performing posts fitting into this category.

• Product content is the least likely to inspire engagement at 28%.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

Lifestyle 33%Competition 39%

Product 28%




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INSIGHTS

CONTENT02

It shouldn’t be too surprising that competitions are the most effective way to generate high levels of engagement* with your content. This is due to the incentivisation; people are much more likely to engage with a brand on social media when there is a possibility of them getting something out of it. However, clearly you can’t be running competitions all the time, as you don’t want your audience to be full of users looking for freebies. You should also be looking to educate your audience and do more ‘brand building’ through your content.

The success of lifestyle content is very interesting. It’s obvious that we are at a time where people using Facebook don’t want brands to just be ramming home their product. If they are going to see content from brands, they want it to be something that adds some kind of value to their lives, whether that be in an aspirational, inspirational, or even just plain useful.

The best product content doesn’t just show a photo of your packaging, it needs to go beyond this, offering interesting uses for the product or useful tips and tricks. Recipes could be a good example of this. In our experience, the key is to get your product across in a non-salesy way that adds real value to your audience.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INSIGHTS

The real trick here is to try and combine different ‘types’ of content in each post. For example, a product post that hits on lifestyle themes, or a competition that gives away a prize that is relevant to the lifestyle of your audience. Obviously, all engagements aren’t created equally - an engagement on a product piece of content is arguably going to be more ‘valuable’ to a brand than an engagement on a competition post where this engagement has been incentivised. For this reason, you should always be aiming to cover a wide spectrum of content styles.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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WHAT MAKES CONTENT GO ‘VIRAL’?

One of the questions we get a lot from our clients is “how do we make a piece of content that goes viral?” Obviously it’s not as simple as identifying a simple formula and executing it time and again, or we’d all be doing it. But there are certain factors that definitely help along the way and one necessary factor in a piece of content going viral is, by definition, people sharing it.

In order to address this question we calculated the Viral Reach Amplification* - the reach that has been added ‘off page’ by people engaging with the post - for every Facebook post over the last two years across our sample set of FMCG brands. We then took the top 25 posts in terms of Viral Reach Amplification %* - all posts had a Viral Reach Amplification percentage of over 400%. We then took an in-depth look at the predominant reason that they were so successful. It immediately became clear that the main factor was the impact of shares and that there were two main types of shares:

1. Quality; An influential person or brand had shared the content.

2. Volume; Lots of low-influence people had shared the post.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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FINDINGS - Achieving virality, quality vs volume of shares

The findings are very clear; 79.2% of the content we released over the last two years that achieved high virality did so as a result of the quality of a single share. 20.83% of viral posts occurred without a highly influential share, rather as a result of sheer volume. In the case of volume of shares, all instances of this came due to a competition being run.

Quality

Volume

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70% 80% 90%


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INSIGHTS

With initial virality, it’s very much a case of quality over quantity. One influential share is worth a lot more than a high volume of non-influential shares. For brands, the next step is clear - you need to do whatever you can to get Influencers* to share your content. Explore partnerships and perhaps try to guarantee shares ahead of the release of a post.

For example, perhaps when signing off budget for a competition post, you could explore a partnership with an influencer who aligns with the theme of the competition and guarantee an influential share on the post. This way you will be combining quality and volume which will give you a greater chance at virality.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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One of the hot topics of 2015 in social media was the subject of reach. It’s becoming increasingly hard for brands to reach their audience organically on Facebook, with advertising spend becoming necessary rather than optional if you are taking Facebook seriously. We decided to look into this definitively and ask the question: is Organic Reach really dead? How much of your audience will actually see each of your posts on average? Finally, how can you maximise the amount of Organic Reach you can get?

REACH03

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ORGANIC REACH: IS IT REALLY DYING? HOW MUCH OF YOUR AUDIENCE ACTUALLY SEE A POST?

For this question, we took a sample set of thirteen FMCG brands who have been active on Facebook for at least two years. We looked at data from December 2013-December 2015. We took the total figure for post Organic Reach per month (this excluded Page Reach and Paid Reach*) and divided it by total number of posts for that month. We then divided this figure by the total audience size for that month, to reach our final figure - the average percentage of audience that was reached organically, month on month.

REACH03@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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REACH03

FINDINGS - % of audience reached organically per post

@bebornsocial

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#ExploringSocial

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

16%

18%

20%

2%

Dec-13 Feb-14 Apr-14 Jun-14 Aug-14 Oct-14 Feb-15 Apr-15 Jun-15 Aug-15 Oct-15Dec-14 Dec-15

0%

There are some clear findings from our research. Organic Reach has more than halved over the last 24 months, dropping from 17.8% of audience in December 2013 to 6.4% in December 2015. On average, an FMCG brand will only reach 6.4% of their audience with each post and looking at the trendline, this figure is set to drop even further in 2016.




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REACH03

INSIGHTS

We’re truly in the era of pay to play on Facebook - advertising spend is now imperative - if you’re not willing to invest money to reach your audience on Facebook, it might be time to question whether there is value in being on Facebook or whether you should focus on another platform…

We are interested to see how long this downward trend can continue in 2016 and we have to question at this point whether Organic Reach will eventually die completely, or whether it will reach a plateau at some stage.

We see ‘annual low points’ in both December 2014 and December 2015 - due to the crowded Christmas period, more brands competing to get on the timeline, determined through the News Feed Algorithm*.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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HOW CAN YOU MAXIMISE THE AMOUNT OF ORGANIC REACH YOU RECEIVE?

The above is all well and good, but we have noticed in the past that different forms of content seem to receive different levels of organic reach. We investigated further into this by breaking down organic reach by post type over the last six months for our sample set of FMCG brands.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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REACH03

FINDINGS - Type of content vs % of audience reached organically

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

2%

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

0%

VideoPhoto

LinkText




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REACH03

FINDINGS - Type of content vs % of audience reached organically

We can see that video is the clear leader in terms of reach, receiving an average of 8.84% over the last six months. In real terms, this means that with a video, on average, you will reach a further 1.29% of your audience than you would with normal content. If you have a sizeable community, this represents a significant increase.

Photo is the next most engaging, and is closest to the ‘average’ level of Organic Reach, at 6.05%. Links and text posts fare the worst - they are both well below the average Organic Reach levels - at 3.52% and 1.23% respectively.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INSIGHTS

REACH03

Video is clearly the best way to maximise your Organic Reach. There are two possible reasons for this:

1. The Facebook News Feed Algorithm* favours video content - we know that Facebook want to see more high quality video content on the platform, and this is a way of incentivising this form of content.

2. Videos also receive a higher level of engagement than normal posts, meaning that Organic Reach is naturally higher.

The least effective forms of posts are links and text posts. As is to be expected, these posts are typically very low in terms of engagement received. The News Feed Algorithm favours the posts that are likely to be the most engaging and so these types of posts are usually unsuccessful. The action from this is simple - visual content always performs better than non-visual content.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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TIME OF DAY OF POSTING: WHAT IS THE BEST TIME TO POST ON FACEBOOK TO MAXIMISE REACH?

Another question that we hear a lot is “What is the best time to post on Facebook?” Obviously after making some great content it is important that you maximise the amount of people who see it, and so we did some research into what time of day your audience is online...

We took percentage of audience online data from our sample set of FMCG brands for a full Monday-Sunday week (Monday 14th-Sunday 20th December). We collected hourly data and then averaged this out over the course of the week, to find out when your audience are actually online on Facebook.


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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FINDINGS - Time of day vs % of audience online

• We found that the golden period in terms of percentage of your audience online is from 4pm to 10pm, with the peak coming at 9pm. This is when 49.84% of your audience are online, on average.

• This tails off sharply at 11pm, when it drops down to 36.07% as people start to go to bed.

• The low point comes at 4am, when just 10.2% of your audience are online.

0:00-11:00 12:00-23:00


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INSIGHTS

REACH03

The peak comes at 9pm. If this is what you are aiming for, you should release your content a couple of hours before this (around 7pm) in order for it to build traction. Remember that this is not the only factor, for example, certain messages will resonate more in the morning. Also, the evenings can be more competitive in terms of gaining reach - so it is important to experiment with what works for your brand. However, we can see that time of day really can have a big effect - at 9pm, you would potentially reach a further 39.64% more of your audience than at 4am, for example.

It’s worth noting that there are lots of great tools out there that optimise posts for timings already - we recommend Buffer. However, this data proves that there are more general rules of thumb that can be useful if you haven’t got access to such tools, or if you are looking to schedule a live social event such as a Facebook Q&A.

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

https://bufferapp.com/




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Engagement is the metric that we always strive towards at BORN SOCIAL. We believe that it is currently the best way of measuring how well your content has performed and, we would argue, how valuable your social audience is to you. We often get asked what an average Engagement Rate %* looks like, so we looked into this across our FMCG clients - tracking this rate over a two year period.

ENGAGEMENT04

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WHAT IS THE AVERAGE ENGAGEMENT RATE?

We collated our data by taking the average Engagement Rate (reach divided by total engagements, on a post by post basis) for our sample set of FMCG brands, month by month.

ENGAGEMENT04@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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FINDINGS - Average engagement rate %

The average Engagement Rate over the two year period of measurement is 8.71%. However this starts getting interesting when looking at the downward trend evident on the graph above. There appears to have been a significant drop off in Engagement Rate during 2015. For FMCG brands, the average Facebook Engagement Rate for 2015 is 7.80%. If you are an FMCG brand, you can use this figure as a benchmark.


@callummccahon

@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

4%

6%

8%

10%

12%

14%

2%

0%






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INSIGHTS

When we look at Engagement Rate over the last two months, we can see that there is a long term drop in Engagement Rate on Facebook. Facebook users are beginning to shy away from engaging with content from brands. The answer lies in creating higher quality content that adds more real value to audiences. Brands need to do more to create content and campaigns that are truly engaging, they can’t get away with basic social media any longer. One thing to monitor over the year ahead is the way that Facebook react to this downward trend. We have seen that they are experimenting with Facebook Reactions, which signals that they are looking to incentivise more forms of engagement with posts. One to keep an eye on in 2016!


@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

http://mashable.com/2015/10/08/facebook-reactions-how-to/




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Audience: We are seeing an ageing demographic on Facebook. We found that 18-24 year olds are 21% less likely to like an FMCG brand on Facebook than 25-34 year olds. The sweet spot in terms of Facebook audiences appears to be 25-34 year old women - brands who are targeting this demographic are best placed on Facebook.

Content: A healthy blend of content styles is best practice on social media; competitions will always be very effective, but an engagement without incentive is arguably more valuable to the brand. It’s about tapping into the lifestyle of your target audience whilst educating them on your product. In terms of virality, the quality of your shares is more important than the quantity - guaranteeing a share from an influencer on your post ahead of time will put you in good stead.

CONCLUSION


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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Reach: Organic Reach has halved in the last 24 months and an FMCG brand will now reach (on average) just 6.4% of their audience with each post. The remedy lies with advertising spend - the platform is now truly ‘pay to play’. Video content is also favoured by the News Feed Algorithm, giving you above-average reach. 9pm is the peak for the FMCG audience being online and active on Facebook, so releasing content between 7pm and 9pm is a good rule of thumb.

Engagement: The average Engagement Rate over the two year period we looked at was 8.71% for FMCG brands - a good benchmark to measure yourself on. However, this appears to be falling. The implication being that brands must strive to create unique and engaging content in order to engage their audiences.

CONT...


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INTRODUCTION

GLOSSARY

Content

Engagement

Engagement Rate

Influencer

Reach

News Feed Algorithm

Any form of post released by a brand on their page - ie. a photo, a video, a text post.

Any form of interaction with a piece of content - ie. a like, a share, a comment, a click.

The percentage of people who saw a post that engaged with it.

An individual with a large social media following and clout in their particular niche.

The number of unique people who have seen your post.

The algorithm that Facebook uses (formerly known as ‘Edgerank’) that determines which content is shown at what frequency to users of the platform.


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial




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INTRODUCTION

GLOSSARY

Organic Reach

Paid Reach

Viral Reach

Viral Reach Amplification %

The number of unique people who have seen your post using unpaid distribution - ie. no advertising spend.

The number of unique people who have seen your post using paid distribution - ie. advertising spend.

The number of unique people who saw your post or page mentioned from a story published by a friend.

The percentage increase in reach that the ‘viral reach’ is accountable for. Calculated as ((Reach incl. viral) / (Reach not incl. viral) - 1), via Supermetrics.


@bebornsocial

@callummccahon

#ExploringSocial

http://supermetrics.com/


