Industry Report:

August 17, 2011

AutomotiveAutomotive Industry Facebook Pages Performance Analysis

Know what works on Facebook www.zuumsocial.com

Report PeriodJune 16 to August 15, 2011(Except where noted otherwise)

Brands AnalyzedHonda, Nissan, Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, Ford

Executive Summary

5 takeaways from the Facebook page activity of Automotive Manufacturers

1. High fan engagement levels correlates strongly to fan growth ratesThis holds true across many of the industries we've monitored

2. International approach to pages can bring accelerated growthBrands can tap new markets that have faster Facebook adoption rates

3. International markets create around-the-clock page activityPeople want to see activity on the brand pages they Like

4. Rich media content drives higher engagement ratesThis trend has spanned a broad range of industries

5. Facebook promotions often lead to accelerated fan growthThey give fans a good reason to post, increasing overall fan engagement

Who's growing their fan base fastest?

Kia's fan base has grown very fast over the past 2 months. It's even more impressive given that they have the 3rd largest fan base of these brands.

What's Kia's growth curve look like?

By unselecting the other brands, we can see a remarkable spike in fan activity for a short, two week window. We can refine our Report Settings dates to drill down and analyze Kia's page activity during that growth spike. 

What topics are behind Kia's explosive growth?

Brand Keywords: While most of the top keywords look pretty standard brand or promotional terms, "Lucky" stands out, in part because it's capitalized.

Fan Keywords:The fan keywords don't show any strong emerging themes. However, there is an unusually high representation of non-English terms being used. 

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Kia's "Lucky" posts were focused on a campaign theme: The Lucky Tour

Clicking through one of the posts, we see the "Lucky Tour" promo on the Kia Facebook page. Featuring Arabic as one of the main languages indicates the global nature of this campaign. 

International audience is reflected in the posting times

As the Posts by Hour chart shows, although all the auto brands do business globally, Kia is the only one posting at times outside of the the main times of activity in the US.

And fans from around the world are responding to Kia's posts. 

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Pulling engagement when other brands aren't active

While other brands are sticking to a more traditional weekday posting strategy, Kia is taking a more consistent approach throughout the week. This is also likely part of their broader, global approach.

That approach is paying off in industry-high engagement rates during periods when the other brands aren't active. 

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Does Kia's growth link to broader Facebook trends?

We've been following 3 key metrics that often correlate to high fan growth rates.1. Fan engagement on brand

posts• Fan engagement rate on

other fan posts• Fan posting level relative to

number of brand fans

Looking at the Quantity to Quality chart (top), we see Kia's not only posting in high volume, but driving good engagement rates. 

Additionally, rich media content typically drives high engagement (left). Kia is both posting the highest volume of rich media content, and getting high engagement rates from it.

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Fans are responding to other fan's posts

Fans are engaging with other fan posts, although the volume of fan posting is not high, especially as Kia has the 3rd largest fan base. But the global scope of their campaign seems to have compensated well.

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Engagement driving fan growth across auto industry

Although a distant second and third in terms of growth rate, we're still seeing fan engagement tied to growth rates for both Toyota and Nissan. Their growth rates of over 2% are still solid for this small 2 week window in time.

Dates: 6/26 - 7/6

Know what works on Facebookwww.zuumsocial.com

That's just a sample of what Zuum can reveal about what works with Facebook marketing

ContactDoug SchumacherCo-FounderProduct Development and Marketingdoug@zuumsocial.com

Join us every week for a new industry report using Zuum to clarify what works for that industry on Facebook. Just register for Zuum to get access to the same reports we used for this analysis. We welcome any input from readers on what they find in the data.