Marketing

Using Facebook fans to improve automotive marketing

By Nathan Scripps

Facebook Fan Pages have become the most recent in a long line of social media “must-haves” for automotive marketers –- but what do they really tell you? And are they even helpful?

Does a high fan count equal success?
Porsche Facebook Fan PageIt’s no surprise that lots of people feel strongly about their favorite automotive brands and show their allegiance to those brands by flocking to automakers’ Facebook Fan Pages. Consider the high fan counts for some of the best-known automaker Fan Pages: As of Jan. 22, 2010, I found an average of nearly 111,000 fans across 33 OEM Fan Pages, which is pretty amazing considering the average fan count across all Facebook Fan Pages is only 4,600. Even for the 24 OEM Fan Pages with fewer than 111,000 fans, the average was just shy of 30,000 while the nine above-average pages weigh in closer to 330,000 fans each. The top five, in descending order, were Porsche, BMW, Audi, Jeep and Volkswagen.

However, high fan count alone is a poor measure of Facebook Fan Page success. Yes, the total fan count is the equivalent of reach, but the message you put out to that audience and the interactions and insights you pull back will determine the real Fan Page winners. Also, you are not limited to your own fans as a source for strategic insights; automotive marketers who learn to leverage other pages have a chance to really pull ahead.

What Facebook tells you about your fans
If you own a Facebook Fan Page — you are the creator, administrator, or otherwise have backend access — then you can access data that will help leverage your fans for free.

Take a look at the aggregate demographics. Examine the fan growth over time, overlay that with other campaigns or key product launches, and see which ones had a Facebook halo effect — then talk about those campaigns to that audience.

Look at interaction rates — page views, comments, etc. — and match your messaging strategy accordingly. Passive audience? Broadcast offers and updates (think Toys “R” Us). Interactive audience? Leverage them for feedback with surveys or projects (think Audi).

What Facebook doesn’t tell you … but you want to know
Audi and BMW Facebook Fan PagesIt will be the marketers who learn from their fans — and their competitors –  and then apply those insights both on and off Facebook who will really win.

Because my employer, Rapleaf, recently launched the ability to study Fan Pages and offer insights beyond what Facebook provides, I decided to look at what can be learned by studying Facebook fans of two competitors: Audi and BMW.

I looked at roughly 50,000 random fans from each of the Audi and BMW Facebook Fan Pages, with an overlap of less than 1 percent. The results showed both striking similarities and insightful differences.

Audi and BMW fan similarities
Facebook Friend Count of Audi and BMW Facebook FansIt is not surprising that fans of German sports-luxury vehicles are similar. It is, however, the extent of those similarities that caught my eye. Demographically speaking, they could be twins; both groups are just over 70 percent males in their mid-to-late 20s (26 for BMW; 28.5 for Audi). Socially, twins again; Audi fans have 206 friends on average while BMW has 212. More surprising still is the near-identical distribution of friend counts between the brands (see graph at left).

What this tells me is that any media targeted to social males in their mid-to-late 20s should focus on brand differentiation within a narrow segment. Basically, you need to tell why Audi is better than BMW or vice versa. This is a brand battleground because the very next impression is likely your top competitor. But they can’t be exactly alike, can they?

It turns out there are some subtle, but very insightful, differences that can turn the tide of a marketing battle.

BMW and Audi fan differences
Social Networking Sites used by Audi and BMW Facebook FansBMW fans are more media-oriented than Audi fans. They share about twice as many photos, more than five times as many videos and have a higher membership across several social communities outside Facebook: Hi5, Tagged and Flixster (see graph).

So what can you do with that? You could approach the sites where you have the advantage and buy up inventory, most likely at a lower CPM than more popular sites. Focus less on safeguarding against the next impression, because your enthusiasts outnumber theirs, and more on the quality of content in each one. For BMW, the focus could be on media-savvy ad units and playing up all the audiovisual bells and whistles in each vehicle. For Audi, attention could be drawn to the straightforward design and ease of use related to navigation or audio equipment.

CRM opportunities
CRM opportunities for automotive brands with Facebook Fan PagesAnd lastly, but perhaps most importantly, any marketer should understand the Fan Page makeup of owners vs. aspiring owners. In a different study against a single vehicle fan page, Rapleaf overlaid the known owners with fans and found a 10 percent match. What does this mean? The Fan Page can easily become a sales channel, helping provide information and offers to the 90 percent of fans who are not current owners of the vehicle.

With more Fan Pages being created all the time, the amount of data available is only increasing while the battle for customer attention wages on. Automotive marketers who can best tap into and leverage these new data assets will have a definite advantage as they plan, create and execute their campaigns.

The comments in this article are the opinion of author and are not necessarily reflective of his employer, Rapleaf.

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January 28, 2010 | 9 Comments 

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