Mercedes-Benz serves the community best

Compared to its competitors, Mercedes-Benz is the clear leader in the sum of all KPIs. In terms of virality - i.e. the independent dissemination of brand content - Honda is ahead. After Mercedes-Benz and Honda, Seat from the Amag Group is in third place in the overall ranking.

This is the result of a brand analysis by the digital agency Webguerillas Zurich. Last year, it examined the Facebook profiles of Audi, BMW, Fiat, Ford, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Mercedes, Mini, Opel, Renault, Seat, Skoda, Toyota, Volvo and Volkswagen.

To this end, twelve different KPIs such as response rate or relative growth were evaluated for the respective Facebook fan pages and condensed into four meaningful core values: "Brand Punch" shows the brand's own engagement on the social web. "Brand Awareness" provides information about the size and activity of the brand community. "Brand Applause" stands for user approval - for example through likes or shares. And "brand amplification" refers to the virality of the content, i.e. how quickly or easily the content spreads online. The study period was the last twelve months.

Mercedes is in pole position in the overall ranking. On a standardized scale from -1 to +1, the brand achieved an overall score of 0.56. The Daimler brand prepares the content of the fan page best, has a clear, stringent, glossy visual language and the best overall response values of all the car brands examined. The car manufacturer uses content on its Swiss Facebook page that is best received by its competitors across all the values "Brand Awareness", "Brand Applause" and "Brand Amplification". Mercedes often activates its community with question posts and has clearly understood the principle of engagement, as Webguerillas writes in a press release.

Second place in the overall Facebook ranking goes to the Japanese car brand Honda. With currently over 17,000 fans, the Facebook community is even smaller (Audi has the largest Facebook fan page with almost 110,000 fans) than that of its competitors, but they deliver new content almost every day with a visual language that is well received. Honda is also currently the fastest to respond to user posts in terms of reaction time and response rate. In terms of "Brand Applause" and "Brand Amplification", the Japanese are even ahead of all other car brands, including Mercedes-Benz.

Seat is in third place. The prepared content is well received, is well liked and shared and the fan page has grown considerably in the last year. Seat's engine only stutters when it comes to "Brand Applause". On the other hand, Seat is convincing in terms of the response rate - i.e. how often user posts are responded to. Fiat impresses with the fastest response time to posts from the community.

Jaguar, Skoda, Toyota, BMW, Mini and Renault in the midfield

The brands in the midfield are committed, but do not do so with the same success as the frontrunners. Jaguar and Skoda seem to have understood the principles of virality. But that is as far as it goes. In the other areas, it is not possible to score points. BWM, for example, has the most active community with the second largest Swiss facebook page, but is unable to score points in the other categories. Mini and Renault have good scores in the "Brand Punch" category, but only receive an average response to their content.

The taillights

The Opel, Volkswagen, Audi, Hyundai, Ford and Fiat brands struggle with low values in the area of content resonance. Opel, for example, impresses with its many additional options in its own Facebook tabs, where fans are offered their own Spotify list, but scores poorly in all resonance values. Fiat has the lowest score in the area of "Brand Awareness" (size and activity of the brand community). In relation to the number of fans, the content of the Fiat facebook page is shared relatively infrequently.

In summary, it can be said that facebook is well established among car brands as a means of communicating with their own fans. All brands were able to achieve growth in their community. "However, as the analysis shows, not all brands manage to do justice to their fans or produce content in such a way that it is well received by the community and activates the fans and allows them to have their say," says Dino Ceccato, Managing Director of Webguerillas Switzerland