Brands See 'Likes' Rise 38% With Timeline

Brands on Facebook have until Friday to update their pages on the site before switchover to the new Timeline layout happens automatically. But among some that have already upgraded, they’re finding the change to their liking. Based on an analysis about a dozen brands that have adopted the Timeline format since Facebook announced the move last month, “Likes” on average have increased 38%, and comments, 3.5%, from February to March.

Fred Stuk, analytics manager for social media marketing firm Vitrue, which provided the data, acknowledged some of the increased engagement may reflect the novelty factor—people checking out new Facebook pages from client brands such as Harley Davidson and Johnson and Johnson. But he said the more visually-oriented nature of the redesign and use of multimedia may also play a part in generating more Likes and comments.

That in turn can drive more visibility for brands in the News Feed and reinforce the trend as users who see recommendations from friends in their feed become fans themselves. That’s the idea, anyway. Facebook two weeks ago said 8 million pages had switched to the new layout, with the other 29 million to be migrated by March 30.

It also pointed to early results for brands such as Ford Mustang, which said it had seen significant increases in “People Talking About This”—Facebook’s self-created metric for measuring engagement on the site--since adopting Timeline February 29.

1 comment about "Brands See 'Likes' Rise 38% With Timeline".
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  1. Karen Ticktin from brandthis, March 30, 2012 at 10:14 a.m.

    These statistics are not at all surprising. Beyond the novelty factor is the reality that social media is, at the end of the day, about storytelling. The timeline layout not only allows brands to tell compelling and relevant stories about themselves but integrate visuals in a far more expressive way. We are seeing a real shift toward more visual and emotionally expressive content as evidenced by both the timeline stickiness factor and the huge success of Pinterest.

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