By themselves, those extra five million fans dont mean much. But how Walmart engages with all of them matters. A lot.
Let's start by setting expectations. The average engagement level for brand fans on Facebook comes in at around 1%. So we're not exactly lighting up the sky here, knowledge of which investors and Facebook's management is all too well aware. However, according to recent research, as explained in the article below, Walmart is generating almost three times the engagement levels for the average brand on Facebook, including Target.
What makes Walmart's strategy so fascinating is that it combines disparate tactics to achieve its ends. The company bombards its Facebook fans with messages at more than double the rate that Target does. Exactly what you might expect from the world's largest and most aggressive retailer.
But then the company pivots. The nature of those messages is far more subtle and indirect than anticipated. Instead of browbeating the faithful with sales incentives, Walmart hardly mentions its products or itself at all. It taps into the personal leisure-oriented persona Facebook has cultivated, somewhat to the site's regret(from a commercial standpoint) to date. Walmart shares stories, one-liners and photos of the upbeat, happy-talk variety. Sometimes it doesnt even mention itself at all. It is simply the source of mood pieces and lite information its fans like. And for that it gets greatly enhanced familiarity and reinforced favorability.
That may be the optimally effective utilization strategy one can devise for that platform. Which suits Walmart just fine, for now. However exasperating that may be for Facebook itself. JL
Jim Edwards reports in Business Insider:
Walmart and Target have similarly large Facebook fan bases. But Walmart gets three times more fan engagement than Target and generates 3.5 times more fan "actions" than Target does
according to an analysis by Expion, a social media management software company.
In short, Walmart is winning the Facebook war with a fanbase that sees more of its posts and responds to more of them.
It's not a coincidence, Expion, says. Unlike Target, Walmart has developed a "secret sauce" for Facebook and is repeatedly executing on the recipe in a way that Target isn't. Here's how it breaks down, based on posts published between July 1 – November 30:
Fans
Walmart: ~25 million
Target: ~20 million
Walmart's fan base is larger, but it is not large enough to explain the better results that Walmart gets.
Number of posts
Walmart: 738 posts or ~five posts a day.
Target: 237 times or ~ less than two posts a day.
It looks as if Walmart is blasting its fans with more spam posts, but that's not the case, Expion says.
Average engagement level
Walmart: 2.8 percent
Target: 0.8 percent
The average engagement rate for a brand page is about 1 percent. So Walmart is outperforming here, by three times as much.
Fan Actions (the sum of comments, likes and shares)
Walmart racked up 16.4 million
Target: 4.6 million
Again, Expion notes, Walmart has more than 3.5 times the number of fan actions than Target."There really isn’t a good excuse that Target can put up to explain these vast differences. Walmart’s strategy just works better," the company tells us.
Turns out, there's a reason Walmart is better at Facebook than Target. It's because Walmart writes a lot of posts that have nothing to do with Walmart.
Expion says:
"... the brand has found a secret sauce and is repeating itself over and over again. A large portion of the brand’s most successful posts are not directly tied back to the brand itself but rather are designed to appeal to the broad interests of its customers. They are publishing posts that say, “Happy 53rd Birthday Hawaii” with a picture of a sunset or “Like this if you’re going to miss summer” featuring a picture of a cute dog. Walmart has found that short, conversational and non-promotional posts featuring fun photos is what engages its fan base. They are blasting their fans with hundreds of posts, but they are posts that the people want to see"
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