Facebook Fan Growth - Top-Down, Bottom-Up
When beginning the planning process for a social media presence for Brands, one truism always trotted out is the “Top-Down, Bottom-Up” paradigm. From the beginning of our partnership with our friends at Facebook, we have heard the phrase repeated and repeated - but where was the data?
At last - recent figures from DDB Worldwide and Opinionway Research support the conclusion, and we have solid data to reference when we make proclamations like “You have to do more then just build it - they won’t come without an invitation!
On the off-chance you haven’t heard the whole Top-Down, Bottom-Up thing, I’ll summarize the basics for you. The top-down element is explained nicely by the first bar in the chart above - showing that 75% of fans’ activity is spurred by ads from the Brand. We call this fuel for the fire, and without it, brands are challenged to grow their fan bases on the platform. The bottom-up element is represented by the second bar, which shows the ‘viral’ impact that brands benefit from when users interact with the brand’s page. Their actions generate posts (”Jamie liked Cheez-It’s video”, Susan wrote on Special K’s wall), which show up in the news feeds of their friends - valuable earned media (called Friend’s Invitation above) that can drive new fans.
The secret sauce is therefore a combination of paid and earned media, where increasing your relevant presence on the platform goes most of the way towards fan acquisition goals, and ensuring that you have an active and engaged community gets you the rest of the way there.
Read more over at: eMarketer
