The Last Assignment of A Great Class

The last assignment of my Introduction to Integrated Communications class is all about analytics. The assignment uses a real life data from a health-oriented company called ABC in the assignment. After 11 weeks of trying to keep up it is my time to shine just a bit, hopefully. If I have not mentioned already I have a penchant for all things analytics, analysis, and even numbers. My passion for numbers and their correlation to real life have often brought about a few sighs and snores. However it is my belief that the rapid growth of available data is giving us a deeper insight into the wants and needs of consumers. Now that I got my 2 cents in about how important data and analytics I can move on to the actual analysis.

Overall Synopsis

-          Over the last week ABC:

o   Grew the number of Fans but the growth was below the average growth of a typical business page

o   There was a dip in People Talking About this but it was similar to the trend shown in Facebook Insights for prior weeks and it not currently a cause for concern

o   The weekly total reach grew by 40%

o   Almost all of last week’s posts were text based

o   Text based posts do not outperform or underperform link based posts

o   The demographic split is 60% female/ 40% male

o   25-34 is the largest age segment with 18-44 accounting for the majority of people reached

o   While fans talking about the page has been trending down the viral reach has continually grown

o   The email newsletter has an average 25.4% open rate and a good 10.9 click rate.

Facebook Insights Overview

Findings

Unfortunately the data set provided only included the top level metrics from Facebook Insights and not the full page and post level exports. Some of the findings are general level correlations that do not necessarily identify causation. Additional knowledge of the business and Insights exports would support or refute some of the findings.

Findings for Facebook

1.       There is an inconsistency in the number of posts each day. At times there is one or two and others four or five. By reducing the number of posts and standardizing how many are posted each day the company could reduce the number of hours of man hours required to create them and post only the best content.

2.       There is a discrepancy in how viral a post is to the number of Engaged and Talking about this users. The reach greatly differs even when there is a similar number of users engaged. This can be in part due the number friends each fan has. On average each fan of the page has 387 friends, above the Facebook average. However there is a tendency for some users to have over a 1000 friends thus skewing the average. When one of these mega users engages with a post they may drastically influence Reach and account for the variance in the metrics.

3.       Commenting on the demographic breakdown is complicated without knowing more details about the exact type of health products the business is involved with. The 10% dominance of female’s fans on the page is nothing out of the ordinary but might present an opportunity to reach of to the male demographic.

4.       Although not specified in the assignment I can guess that the business is in Orlando given where from most of the people are reached. Celebration, Kissimme, and Davenport are all towns relatively close to Orlando and are some of the top most locations from which users visit the page. This is great since most of the people reached are in the vicinity of the business. It is a common misconception that a wide reach is great as this is not true for a local business. If the business does not sell their products online reaching someone in New York and Japan is worthless.

5.       There is a dedicated core of fans that visits the page more than 6 times. Considering that most of the growth for the page is Viral it likely that this core set of followers is responsible for the viral growth.

6.       The number of page views jump around quite a bit and don’t exactly correlate to the number of posts per day. This may show that posting more posts per day does not generate more views.

Reach Tab

Findings for Email Newsletter

1.       The number of people on the email list is over triple the number of fans. If someone gave up their email they will likely also follow the Facebook page.

2.       The open rate is about 5-10% below average for the health and fitness industry but has a great open rate of 10%. The open rate could be improved by varying the title of the email and running A/B tests to identify keywords and topics that increase open rates.

3.       There are no conversions from the clicks. It is unknown whether this is because of there is nothing to actually convert on or no one decided to buy anything.

4.       There was a small percentage of undeliverable emails which should be scrubbed from the list.

 

Email newsletter metrics

Suggested Improvements

The assignment information mentions that the business also runs a Twitter, Pinterest, and a YouTube account. However none of the channels appear on the external referrer’s link list. If the other channels also have several hundred followers they should be utilized to drive traffic to each other, including the Facebook page. The posts on each of the profiles should integrate posts from each of the other platforms to further this traffic in between platforms.

The Facebook page should focus on increasing its reach and followers through organic means instead of a few people sharing their posts. Although a high Virality is great it will follow if fans engage with the page, it is a tic for tac mechanism. This could be achieved through advertising, promotions, and giveaways. By holding Facebook specific promotions more people would be encouraged to visit and follow the page.

The email newsletter could promote the Facebook and other social media platforms. There are a few external refers from the emails to the Facebook page showing that the email has the social links but does not actively drive the users to the page. Highlighting the platform specific promotions would encourage additional growth in followers.

How to Synchronize All Your Social Media Efforts (A few examples)

If you deal with social media, or media of any sort, you must have heard how important it is to synchronize all your activities. Colors, message, tone, images, and every other imaginable has to be kept consistent across all platforms. Every list and guide that your read preaches this but in reality this is slightly harder than expected. Sometimes it isn't that easy just to read a list and execute everything properly. In cases like that I do what many others do, I draw “inspiration” from others who are following the checklist and doing it right. By inspiration I mean I find someone who is doing well and copy what they are doing well. To help out with inspiration below are three companies that are having success on social media across multiple platforms.

To focus in on a successful integrated approach and proper use of social media we will look at a few main points for each company. They will be:

1.       Are all channels similar in content, theme, and branding?

2.       Are the colors used consistent?

3.       Are hashtags utilized on channels that allow hashtags?

4.       Are there any other items of note?

INTEL

Didn’t expect Intel? Considering that Intel makes chips and other assorted computer hardware you may not think that they are very social media savvy. After all a very small part of their business depends on B2C sales. However Intel is very active both advertising their products as well as on social media.

Intel does an extremely good job at synchronizing all their social media channels. The blue and gold trademark colors of Intel are not only prevalent on ever banner on their networks but throughout many of the images and graphics posted. Many of the images used by Intel are used across the different social media platforms. Don’t consider that a bad thing, there is no point in creating something new for every platform. Not everyone follows the same company on every network. As branding goes Intel is incredibly thorough. Each platform features similar highlights about technology, science, and progress. This has been a branding effort of Intel for a very long time now.

If you check each of the platforms for Intel each one is updated on a regular basis, from Twitter to Instagram. Intel will often mention other users or include user created material on their social media platforms. The only downside of Intel is their limited interaction with the users on their social media platforms. There are very few Intel to consumer interactions on any of the platforms, although this could be due to the nature of their product.

Popchips

  

If you haven’t tried Popchips you should, they are delicious and supposedly healthier than regular chips. Popchips is a very social company and one that strongly leverages social media and social marketing. From grass roots campaigns to now hiring celebrity endorses Popchips has maintained their mantra of “One snacker at a time”.

An important part of Popchips strategy is the interaction between the company and its consumers. On each platform the company will frequently engage in conversation, respond to questions, and feature certain users. Each week Popchips highlights a fan of the week which then receives a prize like a case of chips. These fans are highlighted across all platforms, not just the one on which they engaged with Popchips. Posts are often tagged with hashtags and other users.

Given the social focus of Popchips all of their social platforms are very well curated. The content is continually updated with recipes, images, user created content, and original content created by Popchips. All of the platforms are integrated and content is shared across each of the platforms to reinforce a constant theme and brand. On the Popchips website the “Poplive” tab summarizes all the social media platforms that Popchips is on. You can click on each of the platforms and see a summary of all the posts on that platform as well as jump to the Popchips page on that platform. Just by browsing through the multiple platforms you can see the consistency of imagery, messaging, and conversation on all platforms.

Dogfish Head Beer

Talking about a beers social media presence may not be as good as drinking it but at least it comes close. If you like trying new beers from up and coming breweries then you may have heard of Dogfish Head. Just like many of the other upstarts Dogfish is utilizing social media to raise awareness about its beers. Dogfish has taken to all the most popular social networks to advertise and promote.

Dogfish is great at conversing with its customers. From answering every questions to simply saying “Hey” Dogfish is utilizing the two way communication of social media. Their posts are frequent and well timed. Just by scrolling through the Facebook timeline you notice that they post every day, sometimes twice a day at the most active times for social media. The posts will at times refer to other social media platforms such as Twitter or YouTube to highlight some of the different content presented on each platform.

The imagery, and more importantly, the tone on each social media platform is the same. The brewery portrays itself as fun loving, trying to bring their customers the best beer possible without compromising on taste.  This is evident in the conversations they have with their customers, the highlights of their products, and the involvement of the community.