By: Stacey Furtado
Beer. She’s the Crowdly team’s beverage of choice and the catalyst to so many witty Facebook statuses and unadvised late-night text messages. America’s love affair with beer brands has been going on since the 1600s and isn’t showing signs of slowing down. With the Brewer’s Association announcing that craft beer has seen double-digit growth again in 2013, it’s becoming clear that David’s found a bigger rock. Goliath Anheuser-Busch put their hefty US advertising budget in the capable hands of BBDO this summer. This creates an imperative for a craft beer brand who can’t touch these giant media buys to take to social media to level the playing field . From founding fathers to Dutch imports, stouts to ales and Clydesdales to dogfish, we break down what beer communities have the best conversations brewing.
Advocate Retention:
Advocate Retention is an essential measurement of the health of a community. High advocate retention means that a brand’s biggest advocates – their Superfans – are not just taking initial actions, but coming back week over week to comment on, like and share a brand’s content. Advocate Retention is driven by a brand’s engagement with their fan community. A brand fan on Facebook is a full 425% more likely to come back and engage with a brand within a 10-day window if the brand acknowledges their initial comment with a like or response. This ensures the brand’s Superfans are the ones driving conversation its community and maintaining high levels of engagement.
With one of beer’s biggest Facebook communities, Budweiser’s 11 million fans deliver a serious amount of engagement on every post — to the tune of 11,000 comments this month. Out of those comments, Bud responded or liked a mere 38 (.003%). As a result, it’s only retained 2% of its Top Advocates. With big beer leaving the bar low on brand engagement, its time for craft beer brands to raise it.
Big beer’s deep pockets may keep them miles ahead of its craft beer competitors in terms of marketing point of sale and airtime, but you can’t put a price on a passionate community. The three craft brands we looked at all had communities passionate about beer and especially passionate about their favorite product from each brand. Sam Adams, Dogfish Head and New Belgium’s top 3 keywords are all related to one of these two things. Ranging from the obvious “beer” (Dogfish) to comments on flagship brews like “tire” (an homage to New Belgium’s Fat Tire).
Out of the three craft brands we looked at, New Belgium leads the pack, engaging with 10% of its fan comments. Sam Adams and Dogfish Head follow behind at 4% and 7%, respectively, still miles ahead of Bud. Facebook’s Edgerank means unless a brand is willing to dig into deep pockets, it needs to prioritize high engagement for its message to be seen. The more engagement, the higher Edgerank, the higher Edgerank, the more valuable a brand’s page becomes, starting a virtuous circle.
In these large Facebook communities, a brand can be left feeling like Sisyphus, pushing their boulder uphill in an attempt to maximize reach and engagement every day. Superfans exist to lighten the load. Driving value from their social activities, they give brand content traction in an organic, useful and consistent way. With the wind now at its back, the brand can focus instead on improving and growing their community, and not just maintaining it. Considering the passion and education of today’s beer drinker is higher than ever, the untapped potential for advocacy is substantial.
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