Socially Devoted Q2: Facebook is the Platform for Social Customer Care

Our Q2 Socially Devoted numbers are in, and - surprise surprise - they show that Fans want to engage with brands. Customers increasingly prefer to voice their opinions and get answers to their questions on social platforms. In this quarter alone, among the more than 54,000 Facebook Pages Socialbakers analyzes, users asked more than 1.5 million questions. 67% of those questions were answered by the brands they were aimed at. This makes Facebook - for the second quarter in a row - a Socially Devoted platform.

However, more than 500,000 questions were left ignored in Q2, and the volume of questions continues to grow. On average, only 2 out of 10 of the largest brands on Facebook (Pages with 500,000+ Fans) have reached our benchmark for Socially Devoted.

We set the bar for what it means to be Socially Devoted - we believe that brands should respond to at least 65% of questions posted by Fans. Responsive brands see the difference. Only 5% of brands are Socially Devoted on Facebook, yet they receive half of all questions asked and reply to nearly 70% of them in 15 hours or less - much better than the average response time of 26 hours. It’s simple, the more Socially Devoted you become, the more your Fans will interact with you.

The fastest-responding Socially Devoted brands answered Fans in 30 minutes or less - and that includes nights and weekends.

Of the top 59 fastest responders, 60% are Telecommunications companies, followed by Airlines (9%), Finance (9%), and Ecommerce (9%).

According to our Socially Devoted benchmark, the industries that experience the highest demand are also the best at customer care on Facebook. Out of the Top 10 Socially Devoted companies, 9 are the Telecommunications industry - the only exception is KLM, which owns the top spot.

Telecommunications companies receive an enormous amount of demand - they were asked nearly half a million questions and responded to more than 80% of them - Telkomsel, a leading Indonesian telecom fielded more 31,000 customer queries, with an 89% response rate, in Q2.

Retail is also high up on this list - they received almost 150,000 questions and addressed over 70%. The Finance, Airline, and Industrial sectors have similar response rates but on less demand.

Major global and local brands are clearly becoming aware that customers are turning to social for their concerns. The most likely reason for this progression is because these platforms are transparent - Fans assume their questions will get addressed immediately since they can draw public attention to their queries as well. Customers expect brands to engage with them like never before, so ignoring them can harm a brand’s reputation.

BUT one of the biggest challenges for companies today is managing the conversations around their brand on social. It is important to avoid critical mistakes - no one is immune; there were countless examples of social media blunders from even the largest and well-known brands this year. Mistakes happen, but they are usually avoidable.

Some are already ahead of the game and that’s who we’ve acknowledged through our Socially Devoted program. Become a smarter social marketer and start taking control of the conversations now. The fact remains - there’s a long way to go. As we said at the top: In Q2, over half a million questions were left unanswered, and more than 80% of brands with 500,000+ fans are not Socially Devoted. Let that soak in for a minute.

Have your own personal or brand story about social customer care (positive or negative)? Leave a comment or find us on social.

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