Why Oreo biscuits are almost as popular as Lady GaGa

AdAge produced a fascinating write-up of how Oreo and Blackberry are doing on Facebook and Twitter – with empirical evidence to suggest that people are much more interested in conversational updates, than out and out marketing. They produced the example of Blackberry’s Twitter, which on May 4th (National Star Wars day in America) tweeted ‘May the 4th be with you’. Brian Wallace from Blackberry was asked to justify why he was tweeting such a thing, but he pointed out that “the post reached over 150,000 people, 98% of the posts were positive, most tweets made a positive association with our brand, and it drove a 15% increase in our followers”.

Similarly, Oreo is now in the top 25 most-liked pages on Facebook, having added over 3 million fans in the last month. Typical posts get over 12,500 comments – rivaling Lady Gaga in engagement. As the previous story shows, brands mainly aim to use social media for engagement; so writing updates which create conversation and a buzz, is clearly the way to go.

Or as Brian Wallace put it: “A Facebook fan has no value. Getting a Facebook fan to do something does.”

Content should lean toward conversational

Mr. Lazerow, whose company makes tools that help brands manage their Facebook presences, estimates that roughly two-thirds of a company's Facebook content should be conversational in nature. The exact ratio, however, depends on what it's trying to achieve. While there's no across-the-board data on how conversational posts compare to promotional ones, he said the evidence is clear. He pointed me to a few different examples on Facebook where those conversational posts produce eight to 12 times the response of more brand-oriented ones. "It's not always about your brand," he said. "It's about why people are there to connect with other people, [gettng them] to connect with you because they like you. The numbers speak for themselves."

Oreo is masterful in handling that balance between promotion and conversation. Consider the responses from several recent questions:

"Ever try dunking an Oreo cookie with a fork or anything else?" 8,200 likes and 2,300 comments
"Pick a flavor, any flavor! If you could create a new Oreo cream flavor, what would it be?" 7,100 likes, 12,500 comments
"Pop quiz: Twist, lick, then..." 6,500 likes, 6,200 comments

In case you're wondering, these numbers aren't far off what posts on Lady Gaga's page might do. Not bad for a 98-year-old cookie brand. Oreo's Facebook fan base has grown by 3 million since late October, giving it over 15 million fans. It's one of three brands, along with Coke and Starbucks, to penetrate a top 25 dominated by celebrities, entertainment properties and Texas Hold Em Poker.

HT to We are social