Three metrics for social success: Who's doing it right in South Africa

2 Mar 2015

If you have them, you are content and they don't really matter, if you don't, it's a major headache. Followers on Facebook definitely don't excite the senses as an interested third party in a post organic reach world, but they still have a role to play in measuring social success. The followers you have provide a base with which you can work from. Understanding your social demographic for content creation, offline communications or targeting similar people with paid advertising.

Three metrics for social success: Who's doing it right in South Africa

Because all brands are at different stages of their social development and have different goals based on their industry, its hard to identify those KPIs that transcend pure size, but I have put together the metrics that we believe are generally important across the board.

We used Socialbakers to see who the biggest brands on Facebook were this January and how they performed in relation to our KPIs.

1. Fan growth %

In South Africa, the brands with the largest base to work from are listed below but the key metric here is their Fan growth %. Over the past month, who has been working hard to increase their base?

Top South African brands' local fan ranking for January 2015

OLX and Knorr - Whats For Dinner have swapped places from this time last year at the top of the pile but both have seen considerable growth. The biggest climber in January has been Shoprite and this is consistent with the past year as they have been working hard to grow their fan base.

2. Interactions

Having this base, however, is not enough. It's what you do with it that counts. The next metric is therefore Interactions. You have your fans but do they actually interact with your content or has your strategy been quantity over quality? If you have manipulated your followers into "liking" you, all the reasons for having a good base of fans become less relevant to your overall social strategy. Again, different industries are looking for different types of interactions based on their objectives but whether it's a like or a click through, all engagement makes a difference.

In our graph, MTN has climbed the size ranking but is the most outstanding top-ten brand in terms of creating engaging content, followed closely by Shoprite. Both are making sure their hard work building an audience has not gone to waste.

3. Response time

Now you have your fans and they are interacting with your brand, job done? Nowhere near.

In order to be truly successful in social you should be having two-way interactions with your fan base. This is highlighted by the rise of Social Customer Service, but any conversation means your customers are taking the time to interact and it's an opportunity to make them happy. Our third and final metric is therefore Response time. Seeing that most social media users are on their mobile phones, the importance of these conversations happening in as close to real time as possible becomes more apparent. If you have an issue, you want it dealt with NOW and brands need to match the expectations of their customers.

FNB is the most outstanding representative from our ranking. They are the only brand responding to customers in under the all-important 90-minute mark. Pick n Pay and Checkers are also doing a good job, providing feedback in less than five hours.

Fans aren't the be-all-and-end-all, but they have a major role to play in the social success of a brand. Fan Growth % helps you to see how you are faring relative to your brand.

Once you have your fans, make them work for you by creating engaging content. When that engagement is a two-way conversation, make sure it happens efficiently and effectively.