CorpComms Magazine

Companies are still struggling to relinquish control of their brand Facebook pages and enter into a dialogue with consumers, according to a survey carried about by consulting firm A.T. Kearney.

The AT Kearney's Social Media Study, which considers the activity on the company pages for Interbrand's Top 50 Brands for 2011, found that 27 companies did not respond to a single customer comment on Facebook. Just four - Toyota, General Electric, American Express and Citi - respond to more than 25 per cent of all consumer comments.

While 48 of the Top 50 brands have a Facebook profile page, activity levels vary significantly among them and year-over-year comparisons show a continued reluctance on the part of most top-brand companies to embrace social media as a valuable part of customer outreach. This has coincided with a dramatic rise in online messages from consumers which indicate their willingness to use social media as a communications tool.

Jim Singer, a partner in A T Kearney's Consumer and Retail Industries practice, said: 'The majority of companies we looked at are not moving toward a more interactive use of social media, even as their customers are becoming clearer about their expectation to interact with their brands. There are more than 180 million online 'fans' of these brands, and our research looked at almost 3,000 of their posts.'

The study found that 94 per cent of companies land visitors on a one-way communication page (65 per cent on a company-created tab and 29 per cent on a company-only wall) which is almost identical to the 2010 findings when 91 per cent landed visitors on a one-way communication page.

But 38 of the 48 companies with a Facebook page either filter their wall to display company-only posts or restrict them solely to company posts. Just one company moved toward unfiltered communication over the year. Yet the study revealed that consumers 'like' personal company posts two and a half times more, on average, than all other company postings. 'Getting customers to put themselves on the line invests them in a brand...they are committing to an opinion. And that's what companies need to sit up and take notice of,' said Singer. Just 13 per cent of all company posts were personal and 61 per cent were promotional or external.

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