The top automotive brands on Facebook
In the second of our series of posts in association with Socialbakers, we’ve taken a look at how automotive brands in the UK are engaging with their audiences on Facebook. We analysed Q1 2014 engagement data and compiled a top ten league table using Socialbakers’ Daily Page Engagement Rate methodology, to see how automotive brands have fared over the last three quarters.
The Data
Analysis
As a whole, the category experienced an increase in average engagement between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014. This was in large likely to be due to increased use of paid post promotion by brands.
The growing rate of average engagement throughout the sector, together with the reduction in daily posting, hints that whilst brands are posting fewer pieces of content, the content itself is of a higher quality, and brands have increased the amount of paid media used to boost reach and engagement of these posts.
We’re proud to see that our client Jaguar* maintained its position at the top of the league table between Q4 2013 and Q1 2014. This was mainly thanks to its hugely popular new F-TYPE Coupé model, which was revealed at the L.A Motorshow, as well as high quality content supporting concept reveals, and global social campaigns for the F-TYPE, including #FromTheShadows and the #GoodToBeBad campaign featuring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Strong and Sir Ben Kingsley.
Another example of a car launch boosting engagement is Ford UK. Its Facebook Page experienced record engagement in Q4 2013 thanks to the launch of its latest flagship model, the Mustang. However, Ford subsequently had the largest fall in engagement, not even making it into our top ten for Q1 2014. This trend seems to ring true for most automotive brands, where long anticipated model launches can boost overall engagement for two to three months following the unveiling.
Mercedes-Benz UK has also performed well, gaining one position and moving to second place in Q1 2014. Mercedes-Benz made use of fan generated content, incorporating some high quality photography of fans’ cars in various locations, adding variety to the brand’s Facebook page and showing its social side by engaging with customers and fans.
Jaguar’s retention of the top position for the third quarter running, and Mercedes-Benz’s move from third to second position, is likely down to each brand’s social content strategies that encourage varied content that appeals to their communities varying passions and lifestyles. Encompassing models from the present and future, whilst celebrating the past, allows fans and owners of all ages to enjoy and identify with the brand. Another element contributing to the brands’ strong engagement was their use of content specifically created for social, as well as the continuous use of high quality images, set in a mixture of studio and “real world” scenes. Content relating to topical events, and high quality videos for fans to enjoy and share also played an important part in maintaining high engagement levels.
Sports car manufacturer Lotus has also performed well, growing its average page engagement from the previous quarter by 0.17 points. The brand gives its fans exactly what they want: a mixture of heritage content and updates that celebrate both the brand’s current models and success on the racetrack – an element of real importance for brand authenticity for both owners and fans alike.
Methodology
- A full analysis of the performance of a Facebook Page requires the measurement of multiple quantitative & qualitative data-points. This league table is only a snapshot of engagement.
- In this post, Page engagement refers to the Socialbakers Page Engagement score methodology.
- Socialbakers’ Page engagement score, calculated and supplied to us by Socialbakers, offers a transparent and easily comparable methodology for multiple brands.
- The quarter score is the average of each month’s (in that quarter) 30-day average page score.
- Only Pages classified by Socialbakers as Automotive, and from the UK are included.
- The industry average is the average score from all the pages classified within Socialbakers as belonging to that category.
- Brands retained for the Top-10 must to have over 80k fans and post more than 10-times per month.
*Jaguar UK’s social media is managed by We Are Social, however all data was independently provided by Socialbakers.