Is Facebook worth the spends?

Facebook or no? That’s the big question marketers are grappling with, especially when the social media platform has registered a decline in the number of new active users compared to last year. With Facebook’s changing algorithms and slowing organic reach companies might be inclined to shift their digital media budget to other channels, but is it the right time to do so? Think again.

Although Facebook’s reach has declined, user engagement is on the rise. People spend an average of 6.35 hours on Facebook each month, which is almost double the 3.20 hours they spend on Google, and three times more than 2.07 hours on Yahoo!, according to the Social Engagement Benchmark Report: Facebook by Salesforce.com's Marketing Cloud platform.

The report takes into account Facebook data from more than 2.4 million posts (published in 2013), combining both paid and organic. It indicates Facebook pages (of industry) are seeing a marked upturn in overall engagement, and that the sector that has benefited most from this engagement is media and entertainment.

For instance, Facebook engagement has been one of the key factors in the success of digital- and new-media company The Viral Fever–ONE (TVF-ONE) since its inception in 2010. “In the initial year of TVF's YouTube network, the only marketing activity we were doing was to share our releases on our Facebook page and nothing else,” says Arunabh Kumar, Founder & CEO of The Viral Fever & TVF Media Labs.

Some of the other sectors that enjoy a higher degree of engagement include the education and non-profit sectors, consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, and retail and e-commerce.

The study states that for higher engagement levels on Facebook, relevance of the content is extremely important. It recommended that marketers post quality content at optimal times to reach those fans.

To widen engagement on social media, the known e-commerce player Jabong.com has put in place a robust content strategy. “As an engagement initiative we focus on creating content that engages the audiences,” says Praveen Sinha, Co-founder and Managing Director. “The relevance of the content to users is very important and the onus is on the company to create that content.”

Jabong follows a multi-step process to create exclusive content. The e-retailing company houses a team of content experts that come up with relevant posts, articles, and pictures. The company also leverages its partners to engage the audiences.

The report recommends that e-commerce players should encourage the Facebook audience to share content with friends and leave comments, and Jabong has adopted various ways to do it.

“If you ask a question or look for the user’s point of view, the engagement happens much more where people comment, discuss and even share the post,” informs Sinha. “If there is a tip, the engagement will again be more but if it’s an article or an image there will be more Likes and fewer comments.” TVF is one of the few companies that does not spend on engagement through Facebook, and instead focuses on creating identifiable, and thus, shareable content. “To make sure we always have an organic reach and spread of content, we don’t intend to spend or budget for Facebook promotions,” says Kumar of TVF. “In fact even now, our core strategy for promoting content is to literally just share it on our Facebook and social media profiles and hope that our fans like it and share it as well.”

TVF has a limited fan base of about 3.87 lakh users but an extremely engaged one. The company's Facebook page has a strong fan following and audiences interact with the media house even through personal messages.

On the other hand, Jabong reserves a good share of its expenditure for digital marketing. “When it comes to marketing budget, Facebook shares almost the same amount of budget as Google does,” says Sinha.

“If our marketing spends are focused on branding and promotions it’s Facebook we spend on, but if the spends are meant for performance marketing, the larger share of money goes to Google.” Jabong has around 31.24 lakh Likes (at the time of writing) on its Facebook page.

The study gives other interesting insights on the way Facebook engagement works.

For instance, the education and non-profit sector posts content most frequently on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, but receives the most Likes and comments on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays.

For the CPG industry the overall engagement is strong every day. The overall Facebook audience base for CPG has grown 55 per cent in 2013.

Also, the sectors with less/weak Facebook engagement are financial services, and technology and manufacturing.

The study also reveals users are most engaged with Facebook content on weekends — which also happens to be the days when marketers post less content.