Marketing to customers on Facebook is an art many restaurants are still trying to master, but knowing what to post and when to post it can help brands boost engagement with their customers, according to social-marketing firm Vitrue.
In its new report, “The Anatomy of a Facebook Post,” the Atlanta-based firm examined effective uses of the site by brands, including restaurants, to reach customers.
Reggie Bradford, chief executive of Vitrue, said the continued growth of Facebook and users’ openness to interacting with brands on the site underscore the need for restaurant companies to understand what kind of marketing works on the social network.
“There are 500 million consumers on Facebook now, and the vast majority become fans of a brand to get deals or offers,” Bradford said. “On average, a user becomes a fan of two brand pages a month. The QSR category needs to figure out how to maximize their posts’ effectiveness.”
One key finding in Vitrue's report that was consistent across all brands on Facebook, but more pronounced for quick-service restaurants, was that posts containing an image registered higher levels of engagement than posts containing a video or plain text. Image posts got 136 percent more engagement than video posts and 182 percent more than text posts.
Vitrue measured engagement by dividing the gross interaction — comments, shares or “likes” — by the number of fans the brand has. Bradford said the higher engagement for images probably resulted from the printable coupons and polls that tend to be popular with Facebook users.
“With images, there’s a lot less work required for the consumer, but they’re more appealing than plain text, so they pop,” Bradford said. “If you’re competing with my 999 friends to get noticed, you have to stand out.”
He suggested that video is not engaging as many consumers as static images yet because many people still don’t watch video as much as they check Facebook on their mobile phones, though that trend is growing. In addition, many people who check Facebook at work are hesitant to watch videos for fear of getting caught by supervisors, he said.
Vitrue found that Facebook posts from restaurants perform better on different days than other brands. While the average-engagement statistics for all brands tend to be highest on Fridays and lowest on the weekend, restaurant brands got the most engagement for their Facebook posts on Wednesdays, followed by Thursday and Friday.
Bradford theorized that consumers may be engaging heavily with restaurants in the middle of the week because of a “Hump Day” mentality in which they’re tired of eating dinner at home and looking forward to the weekend.
“The fact that the Facebook audience is more tuned in during the week, if I were a QSR marketer, I’d put more emphasis on Facebook during those times, and maybe TV’s better for advertising on the weekends,” he said. “Look at Facebook as a channel like the other big media.”
Vitrue also found that restaurants are the only category where engagement with Facebook posts is higher in the afternoon than the morning. While the average Facebook post for all brands gets 65 percent more attention before noon, restaurant brands’ get 12 percent more attention for their posts in the afternoon than for their earlier messages.
The study’s findings emphasize the need for marketers to be proactive on Facebook rather than waiting for consumers to seek out their pages, Bradford said. The method by which most users will encounter a brand’s post is in the user’s “news feed,” where the posts of all their friends and favorite brands run like a ticker whenever they sign in to the social network.
“We did an earlier study this year, which Facebook confirmed, that there is 110 times more engagement on the news feed between users and their friends and brands than through tabs,” Bradford said. “So that’s where we’ve been focused on creating tools to help marketers maximize their communication.”
Atlanta-based Vitrue works with brands across a variety categories to deliver messaging and offers via social media sites like Facebook. Its restaurant industry clients include McDonald’s, Starbucks Coffee, Shane’s Rib Shack, Buffalo Wild Wings and others.
Contact Mark Brandau at [email protected].