Red Bull is #1 for facebook engagement

by Kevin Doohan in , ,

I've been checking out the @RedBull facebook fan page in comparsion to other relevant pages (beverage and media categories) and as I expected, we are the best. There is a ton of data available in and around our facebook page but for this post, I've only considered two publicly available numbers: "like this" and "talking about this". I calculated "talking about this" as a percentage of "like this" for each page and Red Bull came out #1 against other beverages, #1 vs. the top TV shows, and in the top 4 vs. top TV networks.

"Like this" is straightforward measure and doesn't need much explanation. It counts likes for the page. "Talking About This" is a more recent development on facebook and is causing some confusion...  Search Engine Land created a good explanation for "talking about this" here. My understanding is that "talking about this" numbers are updated daily, cover one week worth of data, and can vary significantly over time so take my observations below with that caveat. That said, I have been watching the ratios for a couple weeks and they remained pretty steady over that period.

I've embedded some graphics below showing how @RedBull ranks. What do you think? Is this a good measure to track or too general? Are any of the results surprising? Leave your feedback in the comments or send me a tweet at @kdoohan.

The results on this graphic were along the lines I would have expected although Pepsi's engagement was a surprise because their fan base is so relatively lame I assumed they would be weak across the board. It's ironic that a brand which gets so much PR buzz for social media & innovation has such a weak facebook likes number. I'm sure there's a strategic reason but even if facebook isn't at the heart of Pepsi's strategy, they should have more than 6 million fans. For context, Coca-Cola has 35 million fans and Red Bull has nearly 23 million fans. Another observation...Starbucks has over 3 million "were here"s on their page. This underscores the power of their physical locations. I wonder how facebook's reduced focus on facebook places will affect that metric and how that metric feeds edgerank (if at all).

I was really surprised with and pleased about this one. Look at the shows here... They are all top shows, all currently on the air, and all attract a young male audience. Red Bull is the clear leader in engagement here though with 37% higher engagement than our closest competitor.

I'd hoped Red Bull would place 1st across the board, but when I compare us to top TV networks, we have some work to do. We're in good company placing higher than powerful companies/channels HBO, Disney, and MTV. However, ESPN, Nat Geo, and History all have better engagement levels when a simple "talking about this" as a percentage of "likes this" is used. 

Overall, my takeaway is what it always is.... The digital team at Red Bull is among the best in the world. We know how to activate our owned and earned channels and I'm proud of our results. That said, successful strategies can be easy to copy. Our focus for the future has to have innovation at the core so our competition cannot even hope to catch up by copying us. I look forward to the challenge.