Facebook and retailers…

Steve Smith, head of thought leadership at Starcom MediaVest London, looks at brand ‘likes’ on Facebook and, perhaps more importantly, interactions…

Clothing retailers are among the most liked brands on Facebook. Top Shop alone has over 2.5 million ‘likes’.

Yet often, brand owners use ‘likes’ as their main measure of success. Of course, ‘likes’ are important. They are the equivalent of getting a customer through the door. But it’s important that people do more than just visit.

Our view is that measures around on-going interactions, for example writing comments to brand posts or sharing content, are better measures of value for a brand.

In view of this, we looked at ten of the top most ‘liked’ brands on Facebook in the UK. We identified how many posts each brand had made during August, and then how many unique comment makers there were against those posts during the month.

It turns out that although Top Shop is the most liked clothing retailer, it falls outside the top five when it comes to the proportion of followers who commented on its posts during August.

This research reinforces the message that marketers and brand owners need to manage their relationships with their followers more closely – and give them content they value and feel strongly about. Interactions, such as comments, are measures of that value and feeling.