Social Media Head to Head Comparison, Round 1: Engagement Vs. Fans

Let’s take a look at the Facebook pages of two prominent adventure outfitters in the Southeast.

First up, ACE Adventure Resort.

Ace is the largest business of its type in West Virginia, and is seen as a destination resort by its guests. ACE offers multiple adventure activities and lodging packages, all on one expansive mountaintop campus.

Versus …

Nantahala Outdoor Center.

The NOC operates rafting trips on 7 different rivers in 3 states. They’re known for their quality and professionalism, and they also offer an array of adventure activities.

The Numbers

ACE

Fans: 15,678

People Talking About This: 4,472 (7 day average over the last 30 days)

NOC

Fans: 103,572

People Talking About This: 2367 (average for the last 7 days; Facebook won’t allow non-page admins to see longer time periods than this. Bummer.)

The Winner

Depends.

What do you want out of social media?

If you want more billboards, the NOC is the hands-down winner.

103k Fans is a big number (maybe the biggest?) for the adventure outfitter category.

But, then, we have to ask …

Why social media?

Because there’s so much more going on when your brand connects with its community.

That connection, not eyeballs, is what makes social so powerful. Word-of-mouth, enhanced by computers.

That’s what we’re talking about here.

And if that’s what you’re measuring (and you should be), ACE wins.

Big time.

Digging Deeper

Engagement isn’t just People Talking About This.

It’s also relative to the number of Fans you have.

Take a look at the percentage of People Talking About This to Fans.

We call that the Relative Engagement Score, and I believe it’s the most important number to watch in Facebook.

NOC:  2.2%

ACE:  28.5%

ACE has an enormous percentage of its Fans participating (NOC is actually a little higher than average for its vertical).

In fact, ACE’s percentage is so high for the industry, for a long time I couldn’t figure out what was making the difference.

But I already knew …

Participation strategy.

More on that in another post.