Facebook can be trusted to roll out features that make it almost impossible for marketers to stay away from it. If people always had a question about what does Facebook really deliver to a marketer who runs a brand page, the answer is on hand. Welcome to the new Facebook insights

New Metrics in Facebook Insights

In addition to existing metrics provided by Facebook Insights, Facebook is now also providing three new metrics: ‘People Talking About This,’ ‘Number of Friends of Fans,’ and ‘Weekly Total Reach.’

What does ‘People Are Talking About This’ Metric mean for Facebook Pages?

This new metric is a way to measure content users share on Facebook that can reflect in the users’ News Feeds. It’s a metric that counts how many people like your page, post to your page’s wall; like the status updates, comment on then, or sharing them, answer a question or RSVP to an events.

What’s important to note is that this metric will not only be available in Facebook Insights for page admins, but will also be visible to page visitors as a publicly facing metric on the Page below fan (‘Likes’) count. Now it would be pretty easy for one to benchmark Facebook pages on how effective they really are and not solely have to rely on the Fan count, which could really be misleading

Marketing Takeaways

The new metrics mean a number of important things for marketers.

While the new metrics available to Facebook page administrators is helpful for marketers to measure and understand how effective their content is at engaging fans, the ‘People Talking About This’ metric is pretty significant. By virtue of being a public metric this will affect the ability of Pages to attract new fans. New visitors to the page may start using the metric to determine whether they would like to be a Fan of the page and not rely purely on the Fan numbers. In effect the task for page admins now become tougher, They would now need to get a high score on this metric apart from pure Fan numbers. This will force marketers on creating a page that generates more engagement and interaction through content. In the end this all leads to Facebook’s stated vision that Brand pages need to start seeing themselves as publishers ad not as pure fan gatherers

How do Indian Fan Pages Measure up?

On the day the metric was rolled out in the public domain we decided to check the top 25 Facebook Fan pages in India for their ‘People Talking About This’ scores. It comes as no surprise that the best scores are clocked by MTV Roadies and Tata DOCOMO. What is new is that pages like Nike Cricket, Shoppers Stop, Pizza Hut, Adidas Cricket, Reebok India and Cadbury’s Celebrations turn up with comparatively poor scores in-spite of the massive Fan numbers. We feel that the public availability of these numbers would actually help brands benchmark their Facebook performance better. Needless to say, 5 of the top 10 most “Talked About” Facebook brands in India are clients of Interface Business Solutions.

As per Social Bakers, Indian Brand Pages on Facebook outscore the world’s biggest brands. Comparing the Page Scores (A socialbakers.com only metric that it creates out of 30 different parameters) of the top 100 Global brands and top 25 Indian Brands has thrown some interesting results.

Kingfisher (83%), Bingo! (82%), Tata DOCOMO (78%), MTV India (77%), Tata Photon (76%) and eBay India (75%) take the top 6 slots ahead of all Global top 100 pages. Dior, MINI and Audi USA are the only 3 global brands to feature in the top 10.

What was surprising is that iconic brands like McDonalds and Coke lagged way behind in the rankings perhaps indicating that while the Brand name itself is enough to get people to “Like” the pages, there is not enough quality engagement that takes place thereafter.

Click here to see the top 100 Global and top 25 Indian Facebook pages ranked by Page Score. Interestingly all the top 5 Facebook brands are clients of Interface in various capacities.

This trend shows the success of social media strategies employed by brands in India. Further, earlier stats released by Social Bakers mentioned that on an average, Indian’s “Like” more brands on Facebook than people elsewhere. The leaderboard now proves that with the right content and engagement strategy, Indian’s are also likely to be more engaged than people from other regions.

How does Social Bakers arrive at page score?

Social Bakers Page Score as per their website is based on 30 parameters (the exact formula is not published). However the 4 broad heads are as below (screenshot is for one of the top 10 brands):

• Fans = measures the real growth of fans in the last 30 days. If the rise is stable, balanced or rises, your index can grow up to 10 %.
• Content = measures the quality of your content published on your page. Our index checks whether the page posts different content, if it posts regularly, etc. We measure this index for the past 30 days. Maximum index score is 30 %.
• Engagement = measures the amount of interactions on your page. Interactions are counted as a combination of likes and comments on your page compared with the number of page posts and total number of fans. Maximum index score is 35 %.
• Quality = gives recommendations on your posting strategy. We measure whether your page posts too often or too little, if posts aren’t too long or too short. It also takes into account the situation when you post more content more than once.  In general, this section gives you hints and recommendations on how to post effectively in order to reach the maximum amount of your fans. Maximum index score is 25 %.

Here’s the list of the world’s top 100 and top 25 Indian
Facebook brand pages (by number of Fans) ranked by their Social Bakers Page Score. This data is for the month of August. Interestingly 7 of the top 10 slots belong to Indian Pages and the top 5 brands are our clients.

Many clients we meet and interact with have a lot of questions about advertising to grow their Facebook community. We are frequently asked whether they should advertise and to what extent. In this blog post we will try to address some of these questions.

How important is a brand’s Facebook page?

This would completely depend on a few factors.

• What is the TG of the brand and what percentage of the TG is on Facebook. Youth centric brands for example could stay away from facebook at their own peril.
• What is the stature of the brand in the market. Iconic brands would get the greatest benefits from the Facebook community.
• What is the Life Time Value the brand can derive from its consumers and what is the periodicity of brand-customer handshake. The higher the LTV and the more frequent the interaction the greater is the value the Facebook Page can deliver. For example a soft drink brand would like to stay top of mind and lead to greater preferential consumption where as a water purifier brand may derive less benefit

Further, it is important for a brand to be able to tightly define the TG and make sure they have a sufficient percentage of the TG as part of their community. It is also critical to make sure a large percentage of existing customers join the community. At the end the importance of a Facebook page is what is the strategy behind having a brand community in the first place and how the community is expected to add back to the brand and its bottom line at some point in time.

What is the value of a ‘like’ on a Facebook page for a brand?

One has to fully understand what a “Like” really means. 99.5% of all interactions between a brand page and its fans happens not on the page but through the users News Feed. Hence a “Like” is equivalent to getting an opt in subscriber to an email or SMS database. We have seen banks and Holiday companies willing to spend upto Rs. 100 to acquire an opt in subscriber. The beauty of Facebook “Like” is that there is no cost for future communication to the community unlike SMS and email where there is a cost to send the communication. We follow a simple process to arrive at the value of a “like” for any brand.

• What is the 3 year LTV of the consumer. Let’s say we are a Potato Chips brand and a consumer normally consumers 20 packs of Rs. 10/- in a year. Hence the 1 year LTV of a customer is Rs. 600/-
• By engaging with the consumer and keeping the brand top of mind what is the likely additional upsell we may achieve to this consumer which for argument we may say is 10% or Rs. 60/-
• What percentage of the community is a likely existing or potential customer. Again let’s assume it is 50%

This gives as the value of a Like at a minimum of Rs. 30/-. If we were to do this for an ecommerce Facebook page the value could be as high as Rs. 100/-. If the brand page has a strategy for direct monetization then one would be willing to attribute an even higher value to a “Like”

How can brands leverage the ‘likes’ on their page for an actual ROI?

Delivering ROI from Social Media as a platform is much debated. While many agencies are of the view that one should not bring ROI into the social media ecosystem, we have been working towards a ROI model for many of our client pages. The following are the possible options available to brands to generate ROI.

• Brands like Tata DOCOMO has generated actual revenue from its Facebook community through special offers on recharges, call rates etc.
• Durable brands can undertake couponing and special discounts to drive sales.
• Fashion and lifestyle brands can undertake “specials” or “member only” previews, offers or events.
• E-commerce sites of course have a clear ROI linkage through Facebook e-stores.

The challenge really is for FMCG Pages pending any integrations with branded retail stores. For some brand pages (e.g. brands in the automobile segment) the ROI cannot be delivered through direct linkages to revenue but can be measured as a function of the incremental recall, preference or advocacy as determined by Brand Track studies as compared to an audience that is not a Fan of the brand page.

Ultimately the measure will lie with the brand and its strategic approach however if brands are to continue with an aggressive Facebook strategy a measurable ROI matrix would become important once the honeymoon phase is over.

The latest trend in global technology is implementing and developing programs that work within “The Cloud.” Even traditional services like online fax and word processors are going virtual. Here are the pros/cons to bringing your business off the ground and into the Cloud.

First and foremost, what is The Cloud? If you are using and web-based services, you are already participating in cloud computing. Simply put, cloud computing is executed through a web-browser, as opposed to client-server computing, which requires someone to download and save applications on one computer system.

The benefits of cloud computing are numerous and convincing:

• More users are able to access programs from diverse locales, allowing for “increased equipment utilization.”
• The flexibility of cloud computing allows users to redesign servers to their benefit, tailoring them to their specific needs and dropping energy costly features.
• The scalability of cloud computing has been frequently cited. If your business grows you can easily order more server space to accommodate the changes.
• By far, the biggest reason companies are switching to cloud computing is cost advantages. A recent analysis by WSP Environment & Energy determined that the per-transaction emission was reduced by an average of 95% for companies that switched to cloud computing.

With the popularity and boom of cloud computing on the technology scene, it’s gained skeptics. Despite its many “pro’s”, plugging into the cloud could have some potential downsides:

• Some contend that the immediate expenses saved with cloud computing don’t always just disappear. The cloud-model requires staff to run databases, answer helplines, and manage applications. Of course, these complications depend on the size of your company and the degree to which you are implementing cloud computing. To minimize these additional costs, be sure to accurately and meticulously gauge how much/little computing you need and adjust from there.
• Outages are inevitable, as clearly exemplified by the notorious Amazon Web Services fall. One way to minimize risk of information loss is to use multiple cloud providers and “backing up” by building redundancies into your applications.

While there are a few downsides to cloud computing, it is imperative for companies to adopt this technology. According to a recent report by Salesforce.com and VCE requested by the U.S. government’s Commerce Department, “cloud computing will become as important as the Internet in maintaining U.S. competitiveness.” Not only is cloud computing essential for revitalizing the economy, it’s essential for you business to stay ahead of the curve.

James Kim is a writer for Choosewhat.com, which provides product reviews and test data for business services and products. Choosewhat.com’s goal is to help small companies make informed buying decisions on business solutions that help their business

Rarely do we see much movement on the Facebook top 10 positions, but this week things are really hot. There are 2 slots where brands are fighting it out to clinch bragging rights amongst the top 10.

The first fight is for the ultimate bragging rights – The number one Facebook brand page from India. For many months MTV India was the undisputed leader. It had the benefit of being a content rich brand with a definite youth leaning, the best ingredients to be a front runner on Facebook. The challenger is really the underdog who has changed the face of digital marketing in India Tata DOCOMO. Even though it is a service brand it has scaled the impossible summit of being the second largest Facebook community in India. In the last 45 days the brand has been one of the fastest growing communities on Facebook worldwide and is sure to usurp MTV India as the numero uno Facebook page in India within this week.

Disclaimer: We at Interface Business Solutions work with both MTV India and Tata DOCOMO hence the race between the heavyweights is purely a function of the marketing might of the two companies, either way we can claim that the top 2 brands on Facebook India are our clients

The next huge fight is between positions 7-10 with Axe Angels Club (7), Dove (8), Fastrack (9) and Kingfisher (10). Technically Dove does not deserve to be in the India list as the fan count is global (part of Facebook Global pages feature). Nonetheless we kept it in the list to see the power on India only brands overtaking a global brand.

Based on our experiences Dove will move to 7th spot followed by Kingfisher at 8th, Fastrack at 9th and Axe Angels Club at 10th spot. Much of this could change if any of the brands change their Facebook stamp ad outlays but in the long term that is what we feel is the rankings.

Let us know what you feel about who will be the leading Facebook brands in India in the long term.

This is the one feature of Twitter that brand owners will just love. We’ll take you through Twitter contributors in the real world. Our client @tatadocomo has been given the extra functionality of having “contributors”, we gave it a spin and just can’t seem to praise it enough. So we thought of taking you through what this means for businesses

What is a Twitter Contributor?

A contributor is any Twitter handle that can be given access by the primary handle to Tweet under its own name. This is much like Facebook Page admins but much better. Till now if you wanted your agency to handle your brands Twitter account you had no option but to give them the user name and password, same with employees. Now this gives them complete control of the account and they could actually hold you to ransom if things don’t work out. We have had at least two large Indian corporates who had to deal with uncooperative employees and agencies and faced immense problems in getting the handle back.

Now all the brand needs to do it add the agency or employees twitter handle as a contributor and he can Tweet under the name of the brand. Imagine the power of empowering employees and multiple agencies to handle various kinds of conversations at the same time.

How does Twitter Contributors work?

We took a real world case using the @tatadocomo (Brand) and @interfacebs (Agency) handles.

Step 1.

@tatadocomo adds @interfacebs as a contributor. Notice the revoke access link

Step 2

@interfacebs logs into Twitter and now sees a linkto switch account to @tatadocomo. Remember @interfacebs does not have the user name or password of @tatadocomo

Step 3

Once @interfacebs switches account it shows the interface as if @tatadocomo is logged in. Notice the settings link is disabled. While the Twitter Ads link is click able it does not work (Twitter needs to disable this ink as well for obvious reasons)

Step 4

We compose a new tweet still logged in from the @interfacebs account but after having Switched to @tatadocomo

Step 5

The tweet appears as if it was made by @tatadocomo

Step 6

We log out of @interfacebs account and directly go to http://www.twitter.com/tatadocomo and the tweet is visible exactly as if @tatadocomo had tweeted it. (We have since deleted the Tweet to keep the brand account clean)

Why is Twitter Contributor better than Facebook Page Admins?

Firstly because unlike Facebook which treats all admins as equal, thereby allowing any admin to remove other admins, Twitter contributor cannot add other contributors or take control of the account as we will see later. Second, while a Facebook page admin gets full control of the settings (thereby even inadvertently deleting the page), Twitter contributors get no access to the settings tab.

So, I am sure you would eagerly be waiting for Twitter Contributors to be added to your brand page. Well, there seems to be a queue, but do share what you think of this new feature from Twitter

This was long overdue. A means to promote one’s Twitter account and generate traction for the brand.

Facebook’s success and the amount of money advertiser’s are pouring onto the platform is in large part due to the introduction of Stamp Ads. Until December 2009, Facebook used to run 160×600 flash banners to the right of the content, much like any other site. The performance of these ads were abysmally poor with CTR’s around 0.05% and CPC’s close to $2 (Rs. 100). That was just not acceptable and there were very few clients who wanted to advertise on Facebook.

Then in a stroke of brilliance Facebook introduced self serve stamp ads. Small 110×80 px ads that started coming to the right of the page with a max of 135 characters of copy. I guess Facebook wanted to open up the advertising to small businesses in the aftermath of the failed attempt to sell large banners to corporates. However, what changed Facebook’s fortunes and drew large spenders to Facebook was the simple “Become a fan” link that was present below each of these ads (Now changed to the inline Like button).

The rest as they say is history. Suddenly brands realized that it was extremely cost effective to build large communities in a very short span of time. All this while there was no way to quickly build a Twitter community, and many brands tried to make their Twitter foray and gave up due to lack of traction.

Things are going to change now and I bet so will the fortune of Twitter. Welcome to Twitter Advertising. While this has been there for some time in the US, A senior Twitter representative confirmed to Interface “Currently my group is focused on working with the largest Fortune 1000 brands globally. We also have a team who works to bring on qualified SMBs to our closed beta”.

We are happy to announce that @tatadocomo is (still to be confirmed officially by Twitter) the first Indian brand to advertise on Twitter. Interface Business Solutions is now engaged directly with Twitter to offer Twitter Advertising to its existing and potential clients anywhere in the world.

Should you want to know more about advertising on Twitter, just send us a mail to enquiry@interface.co.in and we’ll send you everything you need to know about using the Twitter platform like never before.

Do follow our blog as we will delve deeper into many new and exciting things that are now possible on the Twitter platform.

This is really a great thing. Brands on Twitter rely heavily on DM’s to exchange confidential information like phone numbers, passwords and email ID’s with customers. However the process was always cumbersome because Twitter only allowed people to exchange DM’s if they followed each other. From a process flow what it meant was:

• A user would first follow the brand
• User would have to message the brand to follow them back
• Brand would need to follow the user
• User then sends a DM and the conversation would take place securely
• Once the issue is resolved many brands would want to unfollow the user to limit the number of people they follow to keep their follower credibility high. (In part this is because of the rampant use of auto follow settings and bots to grow follower bases by many social media agencies)
• It becomes quite a task to locate and unfollow the user
• Many users see this as “insulting” and this act of unfollowing often creates ill will for the brand

There was no way around this till recently we discovered that @tatadocomo Twitter settings page had a new option to let any follower DM the brand. We quickly checked some other brands we manage on Twitter like Redbull and Maruti Ritz and realized that this was available only to Verified accounts.

We opted for this option and tested it and found it to work like a charm.

So now all a user has to do to DM @tatadocomo is follow the brand.

Thank you Twitter for orienting yourself to businesses. When brands start getting aggressive on Twitter that’s when the tipping point for the service would come. Meanwhile do let us know what other features Twitter should introduce to make it more brand friendly

While many sectors in India have been using digital as an integral part of brand marketing, FMCG has been largely flirting with it. Companies in Telecom, Electronics, Travel and BFSI have been spending between 5 to 35 crores annually. Most of these brands have had a year round presence across most digital media vehicles including search, display and mobile. Many of these brands are also heavy spenders on social networks, notably Facebook.

The story of FMCG has largely been one of finding the right strategic approach. After all Point of sale and ATL (TV, radio etc.) have a clear role to play in increasing awareness and pushing a sale at the point of contact. Digital on the other hand could not do much of either. When you are selling sachets of shampoo for a couple of bucks or a packet of chips for Rs. 10, digital could hardly be considered a cost effective medium.

The FMCG companies worked around this by betting on games, microsites around launches and virals with moderate digital media support to create “buzz” and build engagement. Some like Sunsilk went the furthest with Sunsilk Gang of Girls, which given the time it was conceptualized was well ahead of its time.

The equation has now changed completely with every single FMCG brand planning to enter the digital space with year long presence and a stack of cash! What has caused this change of heart? Social Networks, specifically Facebook.

With the growth of Facebook, FMCG brands now see a clear case of betting big on digital. Building a community for impulse purchase products make logical sense. Spend money to grow the community and you can expose your communication to them every day. Build some engagement for your community and you have a fairly high top of mind presence.

The Facebook audience is also relatively young and that is what most FMCG brands are after – a perfect audience fit. They are also extremely social which allows the messaging to reach a much larger secondary audience, thus amplifying the reach significantly. Just for example in a recent promotion on Twitter for our client Tata DOCOMO an analysis of 500 Tweets throws up some very interesting findings. Just 500 original Tweets  by followers reached the messaging to close to 25,000 people in 24 hours

So what’s likely to happen in 2011 with the FMCG sector? Our prediction is that most brands will be bullish on social media and spends will be between 50 lakhs to 5 crores per brand in 2011. We see FMCG adding an incremental 100 crores to the digital business in 2011. Looks like a clear win win for everyone!