Recent research that made its way to us from Simply Measured made for interesting reading. The research measured the engagement rate of top brands across a range of sectors on Facebook – this is there ability to engage with their page fans. The report showed that whilst, on average, leading brands average an engagement rate of 12%, when viewed by industry, automotive brands outstrip others by some distance.
Automotive brands receive nearly twice the Interbrand average per-post engagement. They also post more frequently and share a higher percentage of photos on Facebook – 84% compared to the Interbrand average of 74%. Automotive brands are able to sustain more engagement with high quality photos of the cars their fans love.
This shouldn’t really come as much of a surprise. Automotive brands were early adopters of social media marketing and they have continued to believe that it represents a cost-effective method of marketing. They have succeeded in making social media a durable channel for them by keeping momentum in their conversations and enabling visitors to address issues that are of genuine interest and importance to them. They recognise the potential that social platforms offer as a channel to listen to their consumers and genuinely seek to make their product or their services better.
The fact that cars are so photogenic coupled with the fact that around 70% of all the content shared on Facebook is photographic means it should be a marriage made in heaven. That’s why photo-activating social marketing can do so much for automotive brands. We know, for example, that if you take a picture of a customer with a stunning new car the likelihood is that the image will be downloaded and shared online with friends. We similarly know that for every 1000 such images that are uploaded, the brand can expect to get around 115k brand impressions on Facebook and around 6500 hits on their web site. That’s powerful.
Consumers today don’t want to be sold to. They want to be informed, educated, engaged and entertained. The automotive industry has put itself in the driving seat of social media engagement; now it needs to press on the gas and exploit it even more.
