Why Brands Have Low Engagement via Social Media

*title change from Why Social Media is not a Good Sales Channel

I recently blogged about why Social Media is not getting the attention of the C-Suite

LINK

Specifically those folks want sales. Facebook is promoting itself as a Sales/Marketing Channel. Thought Leaders like Joseph Jaffe view Social more as a Customer Retention (Customer Service) and Loyalty Building Platform (Conversation when you can get it). In my blog post I trounced Facebook Fan page engagement numbers from the Sales point of view. But is it the Brand's fault? I think it is the platform's fault. And it is not changing any time soon!

I have done studies showing that 90-95% of all Tweets and Facebook Updates do not get viewed. What I mean by this is the volume in the streams are so much that no one with 200+ connection will ever see them all. The total I have unread is 462 since yesterday afternoon. If you are not on my first log in page...your post doesn't exist.

I get about 2400-3000 Tweets in my daily Twitter feed. At least if you Mention me I will see your Tweet. You can not Mention all your followers in 140 Characters.

So the real Engagement numbers from the following viewpoint is better looking than using the percentage of Total Fans. I have a client with 1100 Followers and when I post a Schmap showing their up coming location I get around 20-40 Views per Tweet. The one below I tweeted 4 times yesterday. Taking a very generous 10% seeing each post, that is a decent 15-30%+ engagement rate. When I post photos from my runs I get around 20+ Views on TwitPic which is great if only 70 people see the post.

So the problem isn't always bad content. When I view a Brand's Facebook Page and see pitiful numbers, the reason isn't because people don't care, it's because they do not see the Posts! 

Which completely devalues Facebook as a Viral/Engagement/Free Marketing Platform. As you can see Doritos is giving away $5mil so you know very well if people saw this post they would at a minimum 'Like' it. I mean why are you a fan? Even if I use the 10% rule and only 91,000 saw this post, they had 109 actions of engagement....for a $5mil contest? (This is very pitiful most do a little better).

My next post will discuss some potential solutions which all have Pros and Cons.

Why Social Media is not in the C Suite of Big Brands

Last week I helped you as a marketer figure out the reality in terms of how many people are active on Twitter and Facebook, vs the number the networks want you to believe.

Today it's time for a different angle. I have stated that Social Media is an Interpersonal Communications Technology Revolution connecting people all over the world. And yes it has empowered the people to mobilize, thus making listening skills important to ensure your Brand keeps it's image up. But why so little caring and spending from CMO's and thus acceptance by CFO/CEO's when it comes to marketing/selling?

If you are in the C-Suite of a Fortune 1000 company you make a lot of money. Your money is enhanced by the stock price. The stock price is moved by sales. Big sales. Not small sales. You are going to focus on the big bang for your buck. Not whether Nancy in Iowa is a loyal Brand Ambassador.

So I am going to use Facebook which is viewed as the largest scalable network. Some Brands have upwards of 10mil fans. But I already proved that possibly up to 60% of users on Facebook are Ghosts. They either just browse or they do not exist. Now some case studies with my estimates of their actual customer base world wide. Engagement is the average number of people who either click Like or Comment on a Fan Page Post from the Brand:

Nabisco Cookies:

Customers: 600mil +

Fans:527,000= 0.08% of their Customers

Engagement:100-500= 0.02% to 0.09% of their Fans
Twitter Followers: 0 could not find a Nabisco or Oreo's account.

Not making money for the CEO

McDonalds:

Customers: 26mil per day! I estimate 1 bil customers

Fans: 3mil = 0.3% of their customers

Engagement:500-1500= 0.016% to 0.05% Engagement
Twitter Followers: 46,000

Not making money for the CEO

Starbucks: 

Customers: 400mil

Fans: 13mil = 0.325% of their customers

Engagement: 100-400 wall posts by Fans (Starbucks does not post to its wall)
Twitter Followers: 1mil- Starbucks does get a ton of mentions on Twitter due to FourSquare etc, but I posit that this is not adding to sales very much. Twitter is not drawing people into Starbucks, people are Tweeting they are there, or that they want Starbucks. This has nothing to do with what Starbucks is doing on Twitter. In fact the Official Starbucks Twitter Account averages only 1-10 Tweets per day.

Not making any money for the CEO.

I am not saying this will never change. What I am saying that until it does change the CEO doesn't give a flying f*ck about Social. In fact Vice Presidents might not either other than thinking its a cute new accessory for their image. And a caveat, the engagement numbers are actually better if 60% of Fans are Ghosts, but the percentage of world wide customers are much worse if this is true, or if I severely underestimate world wide customers.

My next post will be using Starbucks and McDonalds as a case study in what they can do to improve their Social Media impact and results.