Latinos Are 'Talking About This' in Facebook

While you are reading this column, many Latinos will be talking about this. And I'm not talking about this column specifically (though social sharing is always welcome), but about the Facebook metric.

In one of my previous articles, I discussed the crazy competition among brands for who has the biggest amount of fans. I said crazy, because having fans is not enough; you need to have strong relationships.

Look Who's Talking Now

The "talking about this" metric is made up of different interactions between your fans and your postings on Facebook. Basically, it measures every time users share your content in their timelines.

"Liking" your fan page or any content on it, posting a comment on your wall, or any other type of sharing is what helps keep this metric alive on a daily basis (Facebook measures it every day, though results are provided on a weekly basis).

The most interesting part is how dynamic this metric is. Getting new fans is great, but keeping your fans engaged and acting as your brand advocates, that's the real deal in social media.

More Fans, or More Talking?

A couple of months ago, I shared an analysis on how Latino Facebook pages were performing versus their general market counterparts in terms of fans.

Now that this new metric has been active for almost a month, I thought it would be interesting to revisit that analysis focusing on the "talking about this."

Let's review a ranking of some of the most important Latino Facebook pages in terms of "Likes."

Now, when we switch from reach (number of "Likes"/fans) to engagement (percent of "talking about this"), the story is pretty different, as you can see in the following chart ranked by percent of "talking about this."

Driving More Conversation

Some initial findings and conclusions:

• Having a big base of followers does not guarantee conversation. In fact, of the pages analyzed, the two with the smallest fan base are the ones with the highest engagement: Wendy's Latino and El Maestro del Vaso Medio Lleno (California Milk Processor Board).
• Frequency of posting relates to more conversation. Bud Light, Wendy's, and El Maestro all post on a daily basis.
• Talk about the consumer, and the consumer will talk about you. The brands that show higher "talking about" percentages talk less about themselves and let the consumer talk by engaging fans via questions, contests, and inviting participation (i.e., UFC Latino).
• Relevancy and conversation go hand in hand. Weaving relevant Latino topics is critical: Latino celebrations (Wendy's and Día de los Muertos), leveraging Latin sense of humor (El Maestro del Vaso Medio Lleno), or Latin celebrities (Bud Light and Pitbull), etc.
• Quality of postings is, of course, very important. Check some of the postings of top performing pages versus the others and you will see what I'm talking about. Also, having specific tabs to expand consumer experience or that are contest/sweepstakes-related creates more fan interaction.
• Spanish language pays off, and English too. Most of the pages analyzed tend to be mainly in Spanish, but conversation happens in both languages. In the case of bilingual pages, Spanish postings tend to have slightly higher responses, but English generates great responses too. As I always say, when targeting Latinos on Facebook, go bilingual.
• Replying frequently is also a recommended practice. Responding means that you care, and people that feel they are being taken care of will come back to share their stuff.

On many occasions, my fellow columnist Giovanni Rodriguez and I discussed how social media has become an excellent way to engage with Latinos; and how Latinos are engaged with Facebook, spending more time and being more active in terms of sharing than the general population. But that doesn't guarantee success for a brand. If you want Latinos to be talking about your brands, you need to take care of them.

Share this column with your Facebook friends and also be a part of the ones that are talking about this.