This week we looked into a bunch of american fast food chains. Due to the huge amount of different franchises we ask for you to be gentle with us if we didn’t manage to include every single one. We really tried, but you can never know.
Liked by millions
Burgers, Pizzas, Hot Dogs, Ice cream… Facebook’s users really like all of it. But instead of greasy food, everyone’s favourite coffee shop Starbucks leads the list with 36.8 million fans, followd by McDonalds (31.2m), KFC (31.1m) and Subway (27.3m). Coming in fith is Dunkin’ Donuts (11.6m), which has less than half the amount of fans than it’s predecessor and is only a little ahead of Pizza Hut (11.5m). Taco Bell is the last page with a two-digit number (10.4), which is still way above the average of 2.25m.
As usual the big companies may have the most fans, but the average growth rate is not that impressive. So it was not surprising that the fastest growing pages are the smaller ones. Except for the first place, which goes to KFC with a whooping 16.27% average growth rate.
How did they manage to draw that many fans over the past four week? We can’t really tell… They’re posts don’t indicate any sign of a promotion, but it’s safe to say: That is not organic growth. But even the pages which look like they grew organically were doing pretty good. Dickey’s Barbecue Pit comes in “second” with 2.58% followed by Roy Rogers (2.37%), Wingstop (2.05%), Blimpie (1.87%), Good Times Burgers (1.43%), Blake’s Lotaburger (1.42%), Freddy’s Frozen Custard (1.32%), Taco Time (1.3%), Wienerschnitzel (1.19%), Halo Burger (1.16%) and Wing Zone (1.13%). Cousins Subs (1.1%) is the last one with more than 1% growth, which is still almost twice the average of 0.54%.
Engagement
With an average Engagement Rate of 0.1%, fast food companies seem to have a hard time engaging their fans on a regular basis. The most engaging page is Baker’s Drive-Thru with 0.8%, which is 8 times the average, but not really that on its own. The following places are populated by Texadelphia McAllen (0.6%), Burgerville (0.6%), Amigos & Kings Classic, Wingstop, Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips, Jimboy’s Tacos (all of them 0.5%), Andy’s Frozen Custard, Roy Rogers, Popeyes Louisiana Kitchen (all of them 0.4%) and Good Times Burgers & Frozen Custard, Fatburger, Wendy’s, Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, The Donut Whole, Wienerschnitzel, which all clock in at 0.3% Engagement.
That the pages could do better can be seen by analyzing the Post Ineraction, which tells you how much your fans engage with a single post. Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory seems to create really engaging posts, which led to a Post Interaction of an impressive 4.5%. Arthur Treacher’s Fish & Chips (2.9%), Halo Burger (2.4%), Dog ‘n Suds Drive-in (1.8%) and Amigos & Kings Classic (1.1%) do pretty well too, by yielding more than four times the average of 0.25%.
The takeaway of comparing Engagement vs. Interaction is to see, if you post often enough. Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory’s posts are apparentyl pretty popular with their fans, so they should post more.
Fun fact: Being the biggest page of them all, you wouldn’t expect Starbucks’ posts to be highly engaging (considering the Edgerank). But while they only have 0.02% Engagement, their Post Interaction is 0.1%, which is better than 2/3 of the other pages. Starbucks, if you hear us: Post more often!
Service
Considering the fact that good (or at least decent) and fast service is a cornerstone of successful fast food companies, one might think, they’re also service pros on Facebook. That’s not (always) the case. On average only 60% of all fanposts get some kind of response (like, comment or deletion) and it’s not surprising to see the smaller pages once again being the most caring: Great Steak, Amigos & Kings Classic, Milio’s Sandwiches, Orange Julius and Biscuitville respond to every single fanpost, followd by Moe’s Southwest Grill (98%), Bojangels’ (94%), Wing Zone (93%), Wetzel’s Pretzels (92%) and Taco Time (91%). Arby’s is the only “big player” that makes it to the top list with 89% Service Level.
But amount of reactions is not the only important factor, speed is also crucial. Apparently The Donut Whole is aware of that and comes in first with an average response time of 0.01h, followed by Chili’s Grill & Bar and Great Steak (both 0.3h), service powerhouse Arby’s (0.5h), El Pollo Loco Mexico (0.6h), In-N-Out Burger (0.7h), Culver’s (0.8h) another big company: Pizza Hut (0.9%). This is proof that even pages with millions of fans (Arby’s, In-N-Out, Pizza Hut) can deliver above average (18.5h) service on Facebook.
Of course the bigger a company is the more spam floods their walls. Starbucks for example has to deal with loads of spammy nonsense and trolls, which of course makes it harder for them to respond fast and thoroughly. Maybe they should just disable the fanpost option alltogether, like McDonals did.
Posts
But what do the pages publish? As usual, pictures are the most common post type, which makes sense, since the companie’s products are best presented visually and not by words. Videos seem to be quite succesful too and maybe should be used more often.
As we said above, the pages could post more often. 0.8 posts per day on average is far away from being too spammy.
And considering the content of the top posts, the danger of annoying fans with stupid cat pictures is pretty low, too. Rated by the absolute number of reactions, the content of the biggest companies comes along as easy on the eyes and always product related, which is a win win situation:
But also the smaller companies know how to use the power of images to remind their fans that it’s time for dinner…
Jimboy’s Tacos shared a picture 6/4/14
or that their favourite food is now even cheaper
Papa John’s Pizza shared a picture 6/4/14
or simply how amazing it looks
After all: You eat with your eyes first!
Conclusion
The old principle “See delicious food – want delicious food” is applied by pretty much every page. And it works well, too. Honestly we expected more shallow catcontent, but the pages do a good job of using nice pictures to promote their products and they should definitely post more often.
Also, they should increase their Service Level or completely disable the fanposts option. Either you want to and can handle the post on your wall or you don’t. Yes, effort gets appreciated if as long as you’re dealing with real questions in a decent amount of time. As soons as you get washed away by spam and can’t get on top of it anymore, it’s time to shut the gates.
All calculations were made with Fanpage Karma. Fanpage Karma is an online tool used to analyze social media profiles. Users can monitor an unlimited number of Facebook pages, Twitter profiles or YouTube channels. Either their own or those of competitors. Fanpage Karma provides valuable insights on posting strategies and performance. It gives hints on how to improve engagement.
Want to analyze the pages yourself? Head over to Fanpage Karma and try it for free!
