Many advertisers, regardless of geography or category, will agree that reaching a brand’s target audience is fundamental to marketing success. The Power of Like Europe study by Comscore shows Facebook brand pages can provide an efficient way to reach Facebook fans and their friends. There are a number of focal points for brands to maximize this effect taking advantage of Facebook friends virality.

Frequency
The first one would be ‘posting frequency’. With different levels of Facebook usage and users within a certain period of time, it’s likely a fan will miss a post on a certain day and even very much possible that a brand fan will have missed all posts that week. There’s a fine balance between a frequency that is appreciated or even stimulates engagement and one that makes a brand pushy.

16% sees 1 of 5 weekly posts
Good to keep in mind the 2011 Facebook analysis Power of Like paper, stating the fact that on average, 16 percent of Facebook Fans are reached through content by a brand, posting five out of seven days. In addition to this, also noteworthy is Facebook Newsfeed prioritises and then shows content calculated to be most relevant to the specific user through algorithm.

Again: relevant content is king!
The second point of attention is the right content. Make it good (funny, useful, newsworthy) and relevant for the brand so fans will share it with their friends. And make sure you do it in that order: if the content is not good enough it doesn’t matter if it’s relevant for your brand. If the content is not relevant for your brand, it might still put a smile on someone’s face. Not great, but better, because a good thing in itself.

Retail Advantage
Retailers who have e-commerce sites can have an advantage when Facebook is used wisely. They can communicate promotional offers with (immediate) redemption. But beware: make sure you stick to Facebook’s rules on that.

Maximize Brand Reach & Engagement
Of course you can look at the above as being turn offs or barriers, but don’t. Use them to your advantage to maximize your brand’s reach & engagement on Facebook through your Fans to their Friends. The European Comscore Study supports the original US findings confirming just that. Brands analysed across the UK, France and Germany in named study showed the reach of Friends of Fans exposed to impressions exceeded that of Fans alone, sometimes doubling the reach gained.

And it actually makes perfect sense as well, dunnit? A friend of a friend is much more likely to have mutual interests with you than some random guy or gal.