Now, thanks to a partnership between Ignite Social Media and Expion, a social media management software with some unusually strong analytical abilities, we’re now able to analyze these pages based on a wide variety of criteria and we’ll be doing that over the next few months.

For this post, we’re analyzing the level of engagement on these fan pages, including the average fan comments per post and the average fan likes per post. This is among the key metrics because fan actions increase newsfeed inclusions, thereby increasing the growth rate on the page.

And if you can engage fans, particularly early on, you can avoid the “decay of relevancy” (to use a phrase coined by my friends at Expion). By identifying the most engaging posts, you can keep interaction high, which will improve the performance of your sales driven posts as well.

The time period studied is June 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011. This data has never before been available for public analysis like this.

Top 50 Branded Facebook Pages Ranked by Fan Actions Per Post

And now, here is the ranking of the 50 largest branded fan pages, ranked by total fan actions per post.

Most Fan Actions

When we look at total fan actions (meaning comments, likes and wall posts), National Geographic comes out on top. In fact, the top 5 are:

• National Geographic: 858,742
• Disney: 766,995
• Facebook: 621,944
• MTV: 475,474
• Victoria’s Secret: 401,335

This is a little deceptive, since National Geographic was also the most frequent poster. (More on that in another post.)

Average Fan Comments Per Post

When you analyze the average fan comments per post, we get a somewhat different result:

• Disney: 2,275.38
• Coca-Cola: 2,155.07
• Facebook: 2,152.12
• Pringles: 2,002.00
• Buffalo Wild Wings: 1,254.05

This is key, as Facebook’s EdgeRank values comments more than Likes in terms of determining what content gets shown in News Feeds, so brands that do a good job generating comments are really helping themselves.

Average Fan Likes Per Post

Two new brands get themselves into the mix when we analyze the average likes per post that the largest branded fan pages get from their fans:

• Disney: 29,682.75
• Facebook: 21,768.81
• Coca-Cola: 14,697.33
• BMW: 13,252.23
• Starbucks: 10,928.00

Likes/Comments Ratio

Given this, we’re seeing an average likes to comments ratio of 8.43 likes for every comment given. (On these 48 pages, in one month, we’ve tracked over 7.6m likes and over 901,000 comments.) If fan page growth is a goal, a brand would want to keep the total fan actions number high while lowering the ratio of likes to comments. This would help increase newsfeed inclusions, thereby increasing fan growth rate.

The Best +/-

The +/- column compares the pages rank in terms of total fan actions versus it’s rank in terms of total fan size. So a positive number means you have a better ranking when we rank by fan actions and a negative number means you have a worse ranking when we rank by fan size. Looking at that metric, the top 5 pages in terms of improving over their size are:

• National Geographic
• Sony Ericsson
• Walmart
• Walt Disney World
• Burberry

Some Notes on Methodology:

1. Per Facebook Rules, Expion cannot pull pages from “private” pages, including those with an age restriction. Thus, the Playboy page that is in the Top 50 is not included in this analysis.
2. The Ferrero Rocher page is not included since the made no posts since May 7, a questionable strategy for a page with 11.7m fans.
3. Fan Actions include all comments, wall posts and likes.
4. Geo-tagged posts, hidden posts/comments and moderated posts/comments are also not collected.

Check out Ignite Social Media for more articles by Jim Tobin

While I don’t necessarily believe in the “value” of the page calculated by this tool per se, it is a handy way to put a number to a page based on that page’s activity—looking at both post volume and the reaction to those posts. When you analyze the data this way, only three of the largest pages stay in the top 50. (Actually, it’s 51, as I inadvertently left Starburst off the Top 50 list. They are included here.) Here’s the list.

Key findings

As you can see, the list reorders dramatically. Some key findings:

• Passion products (like Oreos, Slurpees and Converse) may be able to grow fan bases quickly, but that does not automatically translate into page value;
• The pages with the highest value posted the most. While this isn’t surprising, it shows the effort required;

• All 5 of the top 5 most valuable pages had posts on Sunday and each one has custom tabs;
• While each of the top 5 have custom tabs, only 3 of the top 5 have set a tab other than the wall as the landing tab. This surprised me a bit.

• Each of the bottom 5 posted quite infrequently, except McDonalds.

• McDonalds (in the bottom 5) had seemingly random posts, each of which links to a different burger.

Value by fan

When you sort by dollar value per fan, the top 50 turns practically upside down. Here are the top 10 by that metric, with their rank by fan count in parenthesis:

1. Xbox, $7.08 (51)
2. Dr. Pepper, $7.04 (30)
3. Monster Energy, $5.30 (43)
4. adidas Originals, $4.57 (14)
5. Walt Disney World, $4.50, (46)
6. Breast Cancer Awareness, $4.28 (48)
7. iTunes, $3.31 (10)
8. YouTube, $3.27 (4)
9. H&M, $3.27 (24)
10. Playstation, $2.98, (49)

Xbox barely made the list in terms of size, coming in at 50th 51st, but they’re motivating their base better than anyone else. Dr. Pepper shares a strange collection of very product-centric updates with their fans, but the fans love them. And adidas Originals has both a partnership with Snoop Dog on their page and exclusive product announcements—a good mix of celebrity and insider info.

Real winners

The real winners on this list, then, are the pages that combine both high fan count and high value, as they are doing the best job of converting those fans into action. (Of course, we don’t have insight into the impact this is having on their business objectives, but if you can consistently motivate your fans, I have to think your opportunity to impact your business is enhanced.)

From that angle, the pages that have impressed me so far are:

• YouTube (#4 in size, #1 in value, #8 in value/fan)
• Skittles (#5 in size, #6 in value, #14 in value/fan)
• iTunes (#10 in size, #4 in value, #7 in value/fan)
• Facebook (#1 in size, #2 in value, #19 in value/fan)
• Victoria’s Secret (#9 in size, #11 in value, #18 in value/fan)

Of all of these, I’m most impressed with Skittles. YouTube, iTunes and Facebook have the advantage of a near limitless supply of content. Victoria’s Secret has, well, other advantages. But Skittles does not.

Little blobs of coated sugar, they got heckled a bit for their Skittles.com social takeover in early 2009. But it’s clear from this that they have not taken those fans for granted. They’ve found a way to keep them entertained.

Not the 50 most valuable

Keep in mind, this is a rank of the 50 largest branded Facebook pages, by value. It’s not the 50 most valuable branded Facebook pages. If it were, it would look a lot different, but it would require analyzing hundreds more pages individually.

For example, one of our clients, Windows, has 626,197 fans (as of Sunday, 7/11) and a value of $2,296,080. That would rank it 7th in value per fan ($3.67) and 28th in total value. But since it’s not big enough to be on the current Top 50 list, it’s also not on the “value” list. (But I think we’ll let them know nevertheless.)

What surprised you when you saw how the Top 50 re-ranked by value?

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Since then, there have been several cases where we’d like to do the same thing again. But we haven’t, because in all likelihood it would not be as successful as the first. Why? At this point in social media marketing’s life, roughly half the blog chatter is about what you’re doing, while half is about the fact that you’re doing something new.

Case in Point: Twittering Live Surgeries

Here’s an example that illustrates the point. In February, Henry Ford Health System in Detroit decided to live tweet one of their surgeries. It was a first, and it generated a lot of excitement in the blogosphere, on Twitter and in the news. @henryfordnews on Twitter so an explosion in followers. Overnight, they went from 491 followers to 999 followers overnight and to 1,133 followers in 3 days. Today, less than 2 months later, they have 2,032 followers.

A little more than a month later, the folks at Sherman Health in Chicago copied the idea. Their Twitter stream makes it clear that they promoted it heavily to local media (a smart idea, since in-town media love to localize stories about national trends like Twitter), and they saw an increase of 286 new followers within 3 days. They started at 799 followers and grew to 1,085 followers 3 days later. So, despite a bigger base, they got less traction. Why? The idea had been done before-the Twitterati didn’t get excited about it.

• Henry Ford, going first, saw 130.75% lift in Twitter followers in 3 days.
• Sherman Health, going second, saw only 35.8% lift in Twitter followers in 3 days.
• In other words, the first mover did 3.65x better than the second.

Strategy Changes

First mover advantage is well-established in all kinds of marketing. But with advertising and public relations, it’s what’s IN your ad or press release that gets you noticed. In social media marketing it’s also HOW you do things that get you noticed.

Those who are clever and get it right, like Henry Ford, benefit the most. Those who copy, like Sherman Health, may benefit, but they won’t see the same level of ROI as the leader. Our clients periodically ask, “Can you show me the results of someone who has done this before?” It’s not a bad question in marketing generally, and it’s still not a bad question. Just understanding that, at least at times, it’s much better to be first is the key.

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