How do top Spanish companies use social media? (Pt. 1)

I’ve been mulling over this question for a while, and decided to first look at Spanish companies' participation on Facebook. The other day I came across a new report, which highlights exactly the information I was looking for: Sociatria’s analysis of SocialBakers' report asks the question: “What Spanish brands have the greatest pull on Facebook?” It examines the level of participation with Spanish brands by Facebook Fans.

Before looking at the report, however, it’s helpful to know the standing of Spanish brands both within Spain and internationally. Superbrands found that, of the 350 most recognized brands in Spain, 35% are Spanish brands, while 33% are European, 25% are American and 7% are Asian. The most recognized of the Spanish brands are: El Corte Inglés, Zara y Telefónica.

On a global scale,  according to InterBrand’s Best Global Brands 2010 report, the Spanish brands with the highest value worldwide are Zara (#50) and Banco Santander (#68).

A study by the Universidad Carlos III for El Foro de Marcas Renombradas Españolas, showed that the most internationally recognized Spanish brands are: Santander and Mango (recognized by 50% of people interviewed) and Real Madrid with 45%. Other highly recognized brands are Seat, Telefónica, BBVA, Fútbol Club Barcelona, Sol Meliá, Iberia, Endesa, Iberdrola, Repsol, Freixenet, Bodegas Torres, Porcelanosa, Roca, NH Hoteles and Carbonell.

This report, updated regularly on SocialBakers, highlights the Spanish brands with the most Fans on Facebook. It shows that, in the past three months, 12 Spanish brands appear in the top 20 brands with the most Fans on Facebook in Spain. It’s notable that all of the Spanish brands have grown their fan base by at least 5%, in most cases more. The online shopping group Privalia has grown by nearly 42% and Telepizza has increased by an impressive 84%.

SocialBakers.com

Topping the list in terms of number of fans are Bershka and Mango, with 2.4m and 1.6m fans respectively. Both have grown over 11% in the past three months. Followed quite far behind, then, is Blanco (350k). Strangely, Zara is not on the list. As I recommended in a previous post, they must connect their new social media endeavor Zara People! to their Facebook Page.

Having a lot of Fans is great, of course, but the important point of how companies interact with Fans is key.

Another report from SocialBakers highlights just that. They look at the brands with the greatest pull on Facebook in Spain. The report was analyzed by Sociatria in Spanish, and I have summarized the findings in English below.

Notably, only three Spanish brands appear in the top 10 in terms of activity on their Facebook pages. The top three brands with the highest Facebook activity are international automotive companies, followed by the Spanish brand Purificacion Garcia.  Two other Spanish brands appear on the list: Voll-Damm at #5 and Yoigo at #8.

SocialBakers.com

Another important indication of the impact of brand’s effort on Facebook is how the Fans interact with the brand. Socialbakers has created what they call the “Wall Activity Index” to further analyze participation; this Index is comprised of the number of publications posted by fans on the brand’s wall divided by the total number of fans.  There are a few Spanish brands on this top 10 list as well, including Yoigo, ONO and Iberia Airlines.

SocialBakers.com

I'm surprised at how few fans actually publish on Page's wall. I was sure it would be more. We should bear in mind that there are many other actions a Fan can take, however, such as viewing photos, sharing with friends, recommending the page, taking part in activities such as polls and competitions. 

I've observed that Spanish companies are still using social media as a way to broadcast a message, instead of ‘interacting’ and ‘holding a conversations’ with Fans and Followers. In an upcoming post on the role of the Community Manager in Spain, I will analyze just that.

¿Por qué usar Social CRM?

Por el alcance y el poder que tienen las redes sociales. Por la cantidad de gente que las usa. Por las nuevas canales de comunicación. Por las opciones de mantener una conversación con tus clientes. 

Algunas cifras sorprendentes:

• Facebook es el 3º sitio más visitado en España
• España es dentro de los Top 10 países que más usan Twitter
• Las 4 palabras más buscadas en Google en España son Facebook, Youtube, Tuente y Twitter
• En 2009 la audiencia de habla española en Youtube creció 80%
• Wikipedia tiene 15 millones de artículos escritos de los cuales 697 mil son en castellano, 297 mil en catalán, 65 mil en gallego y 61 mil en euskara
• España es el 7º país del mundo que mas usa de las redes sociales
• 80% de los internautas españolas pertenece a alguna red social y 20% las usa cada día

¿Por qué debería importarle a las empresas?

• El 63% de los usuarios de Twitter recomienda productos y el 61% se quejan sobre ellos
• El 52% se convierte en seguidor de alguna marca – pero el 84% no le importa recibir mensajes de marcas en las redes sociales
• 20% de los Tweets hablan de alguna marca o producto

Es cierto que las empresas que usan social media superan a la competencia en ingresos y beneficios. El caso de @delloutlet es buen ejemplo: ya tiene 1,5 millones de seguidores y ganó $6,5 millones en solo dos años publicando ofertas y productos.

Gracias a la empresa 101cientouno por su buena presentación publicado el 11 de enero 2011.

Social Media Landscape in Spain

It seems we can’t get enough of hearing about the growth and reach of Social Media around the world and how it’s going to change our lives – as marketers and as consumers.

Facebook reached 500 million users in 2010, which set off an infographic frenzy forecasting how many users the social network would have in 2012, 2015, 2050.

All this infographic-ing prompted me to ask, what about social media in Spain? 

How popular is it? 

Who’s online and what are they doing?

I recently came across a fantastic video by the Spanish design and online marketing agency 101cientouno, which highlights the statistics of social media usage in Spain:

I’ve attempted to highlight some of the most interesting statistics below.

With a population of 47 million people, Spain is the 27^th largest country in the world, yet it ranks in the Top 10 countries on Twitter.  In the past year, Facebook membership in Spain has increased 50% to 12 million users – that’s ¼ of the population!  

The presentation Social Media around the World by InSites Consulting is one I reference often. Within the data, we find that 98% of Spaniards know of Facebook, much higher than the world average of 73% and equaling that of only the Brazil and the UK.

Social Media around the World

View more presentations from InSites Consulting.

Spain is the 7^th country in social network use. 80% of internet users are members of at least one social network and 20% visit their social network(s) of choice every day.   


Are kids 'connected'? In the report “Minors and Social Networks” produced by the Spanish organization Foro Generaciones Interactivas (01/2011), nearly 13,000 children between the ages of 6 and 18 from 78 private and public educational institutions were interviewed to learn about their Internet usage. The study found that, among many other interesting facts, the majority of children who use the Internet regularly in Spain are members of at least one social nework (70%), which they use to converse with ‘real’ friends and to entertain themselves in their spare time. 


The most popular sites among children in Spain are Tuenti (60%), Facebook (21%) and Windows Live Spaces (14%), followed by MySpace and Hi5 with a combined small percentage of the users.


How about Search? The four most searched words on Google in Spain are Facebook, Youtube, Tuenti and Twitter.

What is Tuenti? It’s the “Spanish Facebook”… sort of. The company describes itself as a “private social platform” which can be joined by invitation only. Tuenti is similar in form and function to Facebook, but with stricter privacy policies and less advertising. The stricter privacy policies must be an important feature in Spain, which has an online culture more concerned with personal privacy than that of the United States or the UK. Comscore reports that the number of visitors to Tuenti increased 21% from September 2009 to September 2010, in which 8.2 million people visited the site in Spain, making it the 10^th visited site in the country.

Tuenti was created by a group of friends from Madrid in 2006 and has grown steadily; in 2010 Telefonica purchased a majority share in the company (85%) for 70 million Euros. The site recently launched a service similar to Facebook Places called Tuenti Sitios. 

In the area of wikis, Wikipedia contains 15 million articles, 697,000 of which are in Spanish, 297,000 in Catalan (the language of the Cataluña, Valencia and the Balearic Islands of Spain as well as parts of France), 65,000 in Gallego (the language of Galicia in north-western Spain), and 61,000 in Euskara (the language of the Basque country, Spain).


I have to admit that after researching and discovering the depth of social media use in Spain, I was rather surprised. In terms of advertising and communication by companies online, I don’t feel the reach of social media here like I do when I visit America, where it seems every company, brand and product is accosting you with invitations to follow them on Twitter and Facebook.  At times it can be overwhelming, yet the infographics tell us that it is the future of marketing. [The use of social media by businesses is a topic I will cover in a future post.]

The statistics speak for themselves. Social media is thriving in Spain. And now is the right time for companies and organizations to begin taking advantage of the medium.

Social Media y las Nuevas Reglas de La Marca

El Harvard Business Review de diciembre 2010 tiene un artículo titulado ¨Social Media and the New Rules of Branding¨ (Social Media y las Nuevas Reglas de La Marca) como el tema de portada. Es un análisis de la inversión de marketing hoy en día y explica los errores que cometemos cuando y donde invertimos el dinero en marketing. La manera de hacer marketing ha quedado anticuada y hoy en día la realidad es que es insostenible. Estamos gastando dinero en inversiones equivocadas. 


En 2009, después de hacer un estudio de casi 20,000 consumidores, David Court (McKinsey Quarterly) construyo un nuevo modelo para explicar cómo los consumidores interactúan con las marcas. Aunque todava quieren una promesa clara de la marca y la oferta, lo que ha cambiado es en cuales ´touch points´ (momentos de interactuación) están más dispuestos a la influencia del marketing y cómo podemos interactuar con los consumidores en estos momentos. 


Por muchos años hemos creído en la metáfora famosa del modelo embudo del proceso de compra en que el consumidor empieza con una gran cantidad de marcas potenciales en mente y reducen las opciones hasta que deciden cual comprar. Después de la compra, la relación con la marca típicamente está fijada en el uso del producto o del servicio en sí. 

© KLP.com 

Este modelo se ha vuelto obsoleto. Ahora hay que pensar en el ´Consumer Decision Journey o CDJ´. Este modelo muestra que durante el tiempo en que los consumidores están reduciendo sus elecciones, añaden y resten marcas del grupo de consideración y la duración del tiempo que piensan en las diferentes opciones es más larga de lo que solía ser. Después de la compra, muchas veces ellos entran en una relación abierta con la marca, y comparten su experiencia online.


El CDJ tiene cuatro fases

1. Considerar
2. Evaluar
3. Comprar
4. Desfrutar, recomendar y adherirse con la marca

© McKinsey Quarterly

Después de un análisis de docenas de presupuestos de marketing, llegaron a la conclusión que 70% al 90% de la inversión de marketing esta basada en las fases de considerar y comprar, pero los consumidores normalmente tienden a sentir la influencia durante las fases de evaluación y el disfrute, recomendación y adherirse.  Y aunque 90% de los gastos de marketing está dirigida a la publicidad y la promoción al detalle, el ímpetu comprar es más poderoso debido a la recomendación de otra persona.  


Hay que invertir en un plan que hará la experiencia del consumidor coherente y esta puede superar los límites de la marca en sí. El plan variará dependiendo del tipo de la marca y el producto, pero si está bien hecho, la percepción que tiene el consumidor incluirá todo, desde conversaciones en social media hasta la experiencia en la tienda y continuará en interacciones con la empresa y la tienda.


En conclusión dicen que no debemos ignorar los cambios que han pasado en la era digital. Los cambios son fundamentales. El alcance, rapidez y interactividad de los ´touch points´ digitales es increíble y hace indispensable prestar atención a la experiencia de la marca.