Heineken winning Facebook drinks race but Smirnoff spirits rising
According to data compiled by social media analytics expert SocialBakers.com, the world’s third-largest brewer’s eponymous brand had 10.542m fans on the site as of December 31 2012.
Perhaps surprisingly, lager brand Skol took second place (9.227m fans) while the rest of the top five were Bud Light (5.146m), Kingfisher (5.003m), Bacardi (4.046m) and Cerveja Bohemia (3.75m).
AB InBev says that ‘focus brand’ Skol has enjoyed rapid growth in Brazil over the past few years, and the firm claims it is the South American country’s top, and the world’s third best-selling, brand.
But Smirnoff stole the honors as the fastest-growing alcoholic Facebook brand, winning 1.645m fans in December, while Cerveja Bohemia gained 346,880 and Heineken itself 328,592.
‘Socially devoted to you?’
Of course, the number of Facebook fans only tells half the tale, and SocialBakers also measures post-engagement rate, a measure that throws up some interesting findings.
Engagement rate is calculated as the average number of likes, comments and shares per post on a given day, divided by the number of fans for the page.
It reflects the percentage of a fan base that interacts – on average – with a given post.
Taiwanese spirits brand The Singleton of Glen Ord took the laurels here with a 7.2975% post-engagement rate, followed by Jägermeiser Deutschland (2.3444%) and Frizze Blue (2.198%).
Maybe one testament to Heineken’s success is the fact that it also ranks as the ‘most socially devoted Facebook brand’, with a 66% response rate to fan questions, against a 34.17% industry average.
Apocalyptic Bud Light success
Of course, sustained social media brand-building is one thing, clever, Mayan-inspired opportunism is quite another.
Socialbakers revealed that the month’s ‘most engaging’ Facebook post was one from Bud Light, which carried the caption ‘Just in case the Mayans were right’ alongside the photo on the left.
This simple yet effective post scored 106,000 likes, inspired 1,427 comments and 28,000 shares.
