- Fan Base Size
- Fan Growth
- Fan Churn
- Posts by Organizations
- Page Views Per Post by an Organization
- Fan Actions
- Facebook Pages Wrap-Up
- Facebook Groups
- A note about Facebook Causes
Facebook Pages
Fan Base Size
Facebook Pages provide a way for supporters, known as "fans" in Facebook lingo, to interact with nonprofits and other fans. However, many nonprofits are still learning how to effectively use Pages to engage and grow a fan base.
Study participants had a wide range of fan base sizes, ranging from 2,000 to nearly 210,000 on their Facebook Pages. Below is a breakdown of the fan counts of our study participants at the time of the study's completion:
Fan Growth
The more fans an organization has, the more friends of fans will be reached per staff hour spent on Facebook; but growth rates can be compared across fan base size.
The study found an average fan growth rate of 3.75% per month. It's worth noting that this is a much faster rate of growth than that of email lists, as reported in the last eNonprofit Benchmarks Study. (The 2009 study found an annual email list growth rate of 17%, or about 1.4% per month.)
In our sample, an organization's fan base grew by about 0.23% for each post by the organization. In other words, we would expect an organization whose fan base grew by around 1% per week to post at least five times per week.
We should point out that the overall growth rate for Facebook itself is high – with another 50 million users added between September and December of 2009 alone.
Fan Churn
As with email, it's important to track when, how, and why supporters come and go. A fan can navigate to a nonprofit's Page and click the "Remove me from Fans" link or choose to "hide" the organization's news feed on her profile. (This is sort of a "remove-me lite" since technically he or she is still a fan.)
Based on our findings, it's "easy come, easy go" in the world of social media. Organizations should expect both faster growth and higher churn than they see with their email list. Among our study partners, the combined weekly average unsubscribe rate was 0.55% and the monthly average was 2%.
The overall fan churn rate – at 24% per year – is higher than the eNonprofit Benchmarks Study email churn rate of 19% per year. (That disparity is in reality likely even greater, because there is no way to track "stale" Facebook profiles, but stale emails are tracked because they start bouncing.)
Posts by Organizations
On average, participating organizations posted on their walls six times each week. Over a two-month period, our study partners posted as many as eight and as few as three times per week.
The data suggested that there was a correlation between a higher number of posts and higher fan churn. However, the data also suggested that more posts also allowed more fan growth. We recommend that each organization should establish baseline metrics and then work to find their fans' "sweet spot" between too many and too few posts.
Page Views
Page views provide a measure of basic engagement or initial interest, similar to email click-through rates. We calculated average page views for participating organizations, normalizing them for scale:
Page Views Per Post by an Organization
Maintaining a Facebook Page takes resources. So the 64-thousand-dollar question is: what does an organization stand to gain each time it posts something to its wall? We measured the average traffic to a Page for every post by an organization on its wall.
The study found that, for every post by an organization, 0.56% of that organization's fans viewed the Page.
Though Page views are less important than actual actions by fans (just as email click-through rates are less important than response rates), Page view rate is an important metric to track, in part because Pages are viewable by anyone – so it includes Page views by non-fans. And of course, Page views lead to fan base growth, since most users will view a page before they become a fan.
Fan Actions
Fans can take a number of actions on a Facebook Page: they can post to the page (just like an organization can), comment on a post, or "like" a post (by giving it an electronic thumbs-up).
We measured the average number of total fan actions per organization post – including "likes" and comments. This varied widely by organization size, ranging from 10 to 250 for our sample. We found an average of 67 fan actions per organization post.
Fans don't just interact with an organization; they also engage with each other on a Page. Fans can respond with a "like" or comment on fan posts, too. Our study partners saw an average of four fan responses (either likes or comments) per fan post.
The weekly fan action rate – the number of actions per fan, per week – is perhaps the most critical metric to measure the success of your Facebook Page. A high fan action rate leads to even more fan engagement, since news feeds carry all that activity to potential new fans. Our study partners' weekly fan action rate was 2.5%.
Facebook Pages Wrap-Up
How should an organization put these social networking benchmarks to work?
Focus on tracking your own activity, so you can compare it to these benchmarks. Each organization is unique – just as with email, there is no "one size fits all" approach to social media nor is there any one key metric to try to hit. Measure where you are now, and focus on improving those results over time.
Make sure your content is engaging – that's the first thing to look at if your fans aren't responding at the same rates as other groups. Pay attention to the post styles and topics that yield the biggest fan response. Fan actions translate into free advertisement for your Page in fan news feeds, and that will spur growth.
How many posts are too many? The answer to this question will depend on your organization. As with email, fans will probably be forgiving of heavier posting during critical moments – such as when a key piece of legislation is on the move, or when there’s a mission-related emergency. Run a Pages report on a monthly basis, and look at the trends after periods of heavy posting to see the impact on your fan growth and churn rates.
Facebook Groups
There seems to be a general trend toward Pages and away from Groups – which was also reflected by the organizations in our sample. A Group is more like a club – with administrators (officers) and a singular purpose. Facebook Pages provide a more robust approach to engagement, especially when you factor in the tons of applications available. Here's a quick pro/con comparison of Pages and Groups:
Ultimately, Facebook Pages offer more bang for the buck than Groups, and most nonprofits are now using Pages as their primary engagement tool on Facebook.
A note about Facebook Causes
There was a lot of excitement when the Causes application first hit Facebook. Finally, a way to raise money via Facebook! Although a few organizations have found significant fundraising success via Causes, most organizations haven't raised much through the application. Only a small fraction of the 180,000 organizations on Facebook have raised more than $1,000.
That said, in the first five days after the Haiti earthquake struck in January, 2010, the top Cause for Haiti earthquake relief – benefiting Oxfam America – had raised over $100,000.
Below are the top five Causes listed in order of total money raised (snapshot taken Nov. 6, 2009):
Aflac Cancer Center – This organization appears to have raised big money via Facebook Causes, but upon closer inspection Aflac itself donated $999,999 and its Chairman and CEO, Dan Amos, donated $100,000. Without those two donations, Aflac is left with $65,396, or about six cents per member.
The Nature Conservancy – Fully two-thirds of the money raised by the Nature Conservancy was donated via their Lil' Green Patch application which has enjoyed unusual popularity. Speaking to the Washington Post about the relative fundraising power of Causes, a Nature Conservancy staffer said "I definitely think it's first and foremost a tool for brand and reputation...It definitely does more for influence than for fundraising."
TPRF: Food for the People – It's hard to tell exactly what strategy led to the large sum of money donated via Facebook. More than $10,000 has been donated via America's Giving Challenge and 23 of the donors in the organization's "Hall of Fame" have given over $500. It may be that TPRF has "seeded" its Facebook page by inviting its regular donors to give via the Facebook channel instead of other channels.
Overseas China Education Fund (OCEF) – Other than the $17,000 given via America's Giving Challenge this looks like a straightforward effort with few special "gimmicks," apps, or seed donors.
Tibetan Freedom Movement – Also a winner through America's Giving Challenge, which channeled $34,500 out of the $162,709 total donated to this Cause. This Cause also seems to have joined with eleven other organizations to raise money for the Prem Rawat Foundation using Causes.