how timeline is starting to impact engagement for brands

8/2/2019 How Timeline is starting to impact engagement for brands

1/13To speak with a Sales Representative, please call: 888.274.0929 x2 or email us at [email protected]

WILDFIRE

With the debut o Timelines or brands on February 29th, brands and marketers everywhere

wondered whether Facebooks an page changes would cause noticeable dierences in the

behavior o ans on brands pages. Since there are no deault landing pages, a brand new

cover photo, and entirely dierent branding opportunities would users be more or less

engaged with content? Without knowing these eects in advance, most brands decided to

wait to make the switch. Some savvy brands, however, made the switch early and adapted

immediately. These early adopters have blazed a trail through the unknown, and we decided

to take a good look at what theyve learned.

THE WILDFIRE METHOD

Wildre has compiled a statistically signicant analysis o 43 early-adopter brands o

Facebooks Timeline, including some Wildre clients and Facebooks Timeline launch

partners (Burberry, Old Spice, Coca-Cola, etc.). We were looking to understand

engagement statistics such as People Talking about This (PTAT), Likes per Page Post,

Comments per Page Post, and Fan Growth Rate or brand pages o all sizes within a

representative cross-section o brands that switched on February 29th. 45% o the brands

we tracked (or 21 days beore the Timeline switch and 21 days ater) have less than 1MM

ans. 40% had between 1MM- 10MM ans. The remaining 15% had greater than 10MM ans.

See the Appendix or a ull list o brands included in the study.

THE RESULTS

We ound a signicant dierence in the eects o switching to Timelines between dierent

sized brands. For brands with less than 1MM ans (where the range o brands studied wasrom 22,000 to 265,000 ans) the eect on engagement o switching to Timelines was very

large, and positive. Likes and Comments per post, as well as PTAT increased by double-

digit percentages. Brands in this category include Ad Age, Kate Spade New York, Diet

Mountain Dew, and Bakers Delight.

A smaller, but still signicant increase on engagement was noted with brands sized

between 1-10MM ans. This group included brands like Lexus, Dove, Tide, and ESPN.

A dierent trend became apparent with the mega brands (those with over 10MM ans). The

largest brands in the world actually experienced anegative impact. A small sampling o

these brands includes Manchester United and Coca-Cola.

THE NEGATIVE CORRELATION

While several pieces o early press about the impact o Timeline were less than positive, this

skepticism turned out not to apply to most brands. When investigating the reason or this

signicant drop in engagement statistics or the mega brands, a correlation quickly became

apparent. All o the mega brands aected negatively by the Timelines switch were part o

Facebooks debut partner brands. These are the brands whose Timelines were launched

on the same day as Facebook made the major announcement, and used by Facebook in

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WILDFIRE

its press release and all related press materials. The huge inux o attention and eyeballs

to these top brands because o their exposure as partner brands articially elevated their

engagement statistics or long enough that, ater some o the initial hype died away,

engagement rates returned to previous levels, and a downward trending engagement

rate was perceived.

THE BIGGER PICTURE

Our study shows that these numbers, and the negative trend in general, do not apply to the

vast majority o brands on Facebook: o the 37MM an pages on Facebook, less than 5%

o those pages have more than 10MM ans. One must look at the study o brands with less

than 1MM ans to get an accurate picture, as these brands make up approximately 85% o

the company pages on Facebook.

Another conclusion rom the eect o Timelines on engagement is that the popularity ocertain post types has shited. Photo and Video posts are perorming better in a Post-

Timeline world. The visual structure o the Timeline may be the cause o the signicant

increase in engagement with Photos and Videos. This visual media has more screen real

estate and is displayed very prominently. Videos and photos posted to the Timeline attract

more attention rom users, and the engagement numbers reect this.

We also measured the impact o the new Timeline eatures Pinned Posts and Featured

Posts to see i having the ability to treat dierent posts in these ways aects user

interaction with them. While the results were generally good depending on the type o

content being eatured or pinned, (i.e. video versus photo posts), there were some

statistically signicant trends, including that Pinned Posts are great at generating likes and

comments, outperorming any other type o pinned or eatured content by 1.1x on this

specic measure.

All o the numbers specic to this analysis are available below, as are a number o charts

and graphs in an Appendix. The initial result o our analysis o early adopter brands is that

Timeline has had a benecial eect on measures o brand engagement. As the sample size

and duration o Timeline pages increase, the analysis may yield dierent results.

Methodology

We studied 43 brands in total, all o which launched their Timeline pages on Feb 29.

This set includes 20 o Facebooks launch partners, and a random sampling o 23 other

brand pages. The date range or the study was February 1st March 23rd, which achieved

statistical signicance by tracking the 21 days leading up to the Timeline debut, and 21 days

ater the early adopter brands switched.

Brands Chosen (43)


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How did the an growth rate and engagement stats o these groups change with Timeline?

< 1 M fans

Daily Fan Growth Rate -0.04%

PTAT 67.4%

Comments Per Brand Post 40.0%

Likes Per Brand Post 60.3%

For an pages with less than 1 MM ans, a cross-section o samples representing the an

page sizes o over 95% o Facebook, all changes in engagement statistics were markedly

positive. People Talking About This, Comments per Post, and Likes per Post all increased

by over 40%, hugely signicant changes. Interestingly, there was no corresponding change

in an growth rate ater Timeline, so while users were markedly more engaged ater the big

switch, no more o them than usual committed to being a an o the pages.

1-10 Million Fans


PTAT 28.58%

Comments Per Brand Post -17.43%

Likes Per Brand Post 13.56%

For an pages with between 1MM and 10MM ans, PTAT and Likes per Post increased

signicantly. On the other hand, Comments per Post decreased signicantly. Fan Growth

Rate remained unaected.

10 + Million Fans


PTAT -13.72%

Comments Per Brand Post -16.72%

Likes Per Brand Post -11.57%


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For the largest mega brands, with over 10MM Facebook ans, there was a markedly

negative change in engagement statistics ater the Timeline transition. One interesting

correlation that may play a large role in this negative turnout is that all o the 7 brands

o this size in the study were Facebook launch partner brands or the Timeline debut.

This means that the brands got heavy press activity, having been part o a select group

o brands that got promoted within Facebook press materials, as well as other articles

published or days ater. The increase in engagement was so steep across the period

o heavy press promotion, that when the press subsided, the corresponding drop

in engagement was thunderous. Thereore, the resulting engagement statistics are

characteristic o the inated engagement due to high press activity more so than any known

eects o Timeline on the brand.

Finally, despite the signicant dierences in engagement activity ater the implementation

o Timelines or brands, none o the an page size segments experienced any change in

Facebook Fan Growth Rate. Despite all the extra trafc to these early adopter brands

(especially those that were a part o Facebooks launch partner program, receiving high

press attention) which led to signicant directional impact on engagement scores, an

growth didnt budge. This indicates that users were not entirely convinced by the new and

ashy TImeline activity they would engage with it, but were not persuaded enough to

commit a Like to the page.

In addition to understanding the efect o a change to Timeline on

engagement metrics, we also looked to see more inormation about

engagement as it related to page posting practices.


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THE PAGE POST CHANGES

Post Behavior

Dataset: This data is taken rom 50 brands that switched over to Timeline on Feb 29 and

covers the date ranges Feb 1 March 23.

Links are the most common message type. O the 4,780 posts created by brands during

this time, 39.9% were links, with photos coming in second at 34.6%. The distribution o post

types did not change substantially beore and ater Timeline rolled out.

What types o content generate the best likes, comments, and shares?

PRE-TIMELINE

LIKES COMMENTS SHARES

Status (most) Status (most) Video (most)

Photo Photo Photo

Video Video Status

Link (least) Link (least) Link (least)

Pre-Timeline

Status updates were the best ways to generate likes and comments, outperforming the

next best post type by 21.8% and 17% respectively

Video posts were the best way to generate shares, outperforming the next best type of

post by 69.5%

POST-TIMELINE

LIKES COMMENTS SHARES

Status (most) Photo (most) Video (most)

Photo Status Photo

Video Video Link

Link (least) Link Status


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Post-Timeline

Status updates are the best at generating likes, outperforming the next best post

type by 21.1%

Photos are the best at generating comments, outperforming the next best posttype by 8.3%

Videos are the king of generating shares, outperforming the next best post

type by 90%

IMPORTANT NOTE: Photo and Video posts are quantitatively perorming better in a Post-

Timeline world. The visual structure o the Timeline may be the cause o the signicant

increase in engagement with Photos and Videos. This visual media has more screen real

estate and is displayed very prominently. Videos and photos posted to the Timeline attract

more attention rom users, and the engagement numbers reect this.

How are pinned and eatured posts perorming?

Since Feb 29, the brands we tracked published 98 eatured posts and 18 pinned posts. In a

head to head comparison against posts created beore the Timeline launch, perormance

seems good.

AVE. NO. OF

LIKES

AVE. NO. OF

COMMENTS

AVE. NO. OF

SHARES

Regular Posts 3051.15 363.90 217.90

Featured Posts 3032.96 354,.62 409.24

Pinned Posts 4228.83 386.28 286.28

On a per post basis, pinned and eatured posts perorm the same or better than regular

posts. The brightest spot is the perormance o Pinned Photo Posts.

How do photo pinned posts perorm against other post types?

AVE. NO. OF

LIKES

AVE. NO. OF

COMMENTS

AVE. NO. OF

SHARES

Regular Photo

Posts4399.66 591.71 297.52

Featured

Photo Posts3268.79 441.75 282.53

Pinned PhotoPosts

6348.40 607.70 487.10

Pinned Photo posts outperorm any other type o eatured post content in terms o likes,

comments and shares. More importantly, they outperorm regular photo posts as well.


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What type o pinned or eatured content drives sharing?

Featured Video Posts perorm the best at generating shares. In terms o encouraging

shares, Featured Video Posts not only outperorm any other type o eatured or pinned

content by 3.77x, they also outperorm VIdeo Posts by 2x.

One thing to note is that over 2500 posts were generated by our target brands since the

Timeline launch, o which only 116 were Featured or Pinned. This isnt conclusive data, but

the trend does point towards photos as the pinned content o choice.

Appendix: Data and Charts

Figure 1.0 The Average People Talking About this rate o change was increasing

ater the switch to Timeline.

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyPTAT

AggregatePTATforBrandPageswith


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Figure 1.1 People Talking About This rises ater the switch to Timelines or mid-

size brands.

0

20000

40000

60000

80000

100000

120000

140000

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyPTAT

AggregatePTATforPageswith110MMFans

Figure 1.2 People Talking About Mega-Brands decreases slightly ater the introduc-

tion o Timelines.

0

100000

200000

300000

400000

500000

600000

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyPTAT

AggregatePTATforPageswith10MM+Fans


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Figure 1.3 Likes on Brand Posts or Pages with less than 1MM ans increase signi-

cantly.

0

200

400

600

800

1000

1200

1400

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyLikes

LikesonBrandPostsforPageswith


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Figure 1.5 Likes on Brand Posts decrease ater Timeline or mega-brands.

0

5000

10000

15000

20000

25000

30000

35000

40000

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyLikes

LikesonBrandPostsforPageswith10+MMFans

Figure 1.6 Comments on brand posts decrease ater Timelines, but not at as ast a

rate as they increased. This is a net positive efect on engagement.

0

50

100

150

200

250

300

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyComments

CommentsonBrandPostsforPageswith


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Figure 1.7 Comments on Brand Posts by a medium sized an base decrease

slightly.

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

800

900

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyComments

CommentsonBrandPostsforPageswith110MMFans

Figure 1.8 Comments on Brand Posts made by mega brands decrease signi-

cantly.

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

1/181/31 2/12/14 2/152/28 2/293/13 3/143/25

Avg.

DailyComments

CommentsonBrandPostsforPageswith10+MMFans


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THE BRANDS

Brand Name Facebook Page

Advertising Age http://www.acebook.com/adage

AT&T http://www.acebook.com/att

Bakers Delight http://www.acebook.com/bakersdelight

Ben & Jerrys http://www.acebook.com/benjerry

Burberry http://www.acebook.com/burberry

Burton http://www.acebook.com/BurtonMenswear

Captain Morgan USA http://www.acebook.com/CaptainMorganUSA

Chegg http://www.acebook.com/Chegg

Coca-Cola http://www.acebook.com/cocacola

Coldplay http://www.acebook.com/coldplay

CONTOUR http://www.acebook.com/contour

Detroit Lions http://www.acebook.com/DetroitLions

Diet Mountain Dew http://www.acebook.com/DietDew

Dove http://www.acebook.com/dove

ESPN http://www.acebook.com/espn

Ford Motor Company http://www.acebook.com/ord

Harley-Davidson http://www.acebook.com/harley-davidson

HubSpot http://www.acebook.com/hubspot

Hyundai Worldwide http://www.acebook.com/Hyundaiworldwide

Kate Spade New Yor http://www.acebook.com/katespade

Lexus http://www.acebook.com/lexus

Liquor.com http://www.acebook.com/Liquor.com

Livestrong http://www.acebook.com/livestrong

Louis Vuitton http://www.acebook.com/LouisVuitton

Macys http://www.acebook.com/Macys

Magnolia Bakery http://www.acebook.com/MagnoliaBakery

Manchester United http://www.acebook.com/manchesterunited

Mountain Dew http://www.acebook.com/mountaindew

Nespresso http://www.acebook.com/nespresso

Old Spice http://www.acebook.com/OldSpice

Red Bull http://www.acebook.com/redbull

SOL REPUBLIC http://www.acebook.com/solrepublic


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SportsCenter http://www.acebook.com/SportsCenter

Starbucks http://www.acebook.com/Starbucks

Subway http://www.acebook.com/Subway

The New York Times http://www.acebook.com/nytimes

Tide http://www.acebook.com/tide

Tiany & Co. http://www.acebook.com/tiany

Today Show http://www.acebook.com/today

Toyota USA http://www.acebook.com/toyota

Verizon Wireless http://www.acebook.com/verizon

Walmart http://www.acebook.com/walmart

Windows http://www.acebook.com/windows

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