Introducing the Facebook Success Index for the Communications Industry

Ed Finegold - 27/12/11

The practice of engaging customers through Facebook is only in its earliest stages, but it’s already clear that the social medium has great potential for customer interaction. BillingViews has introduced its Facebook Success Index as way to establish benchmarks for communications operators and determine industry leaders in this important, emerging area. The Facebook Success Index is part of BillingViews’ ongoing series on Social CRM.

The simplest measure of a company’s level of customer engagement is the number of “likes” it has garnered. The Facebook Success index uses this metric as an initial way to measure operators, both in terms of total likes, and in terms of likes as a percentage of their total subscriber base. Likes are the best, most publicly visible, and non-proprietary measure of overall customer engagement via Facebook.

According to the BillingViews Facebook Success Index, the communications industry’s leaders include Telus; Vodafone operating companies in Italy, Portugal, Egypt and the UK; Orange Polska and Morocco; America Movil’s Claro; DiGi Malaysia; AT&T; and Verizon Wireless. Industry-wide, average total Facebook likes approach 206,000, while the average likes as a percentage of total subscribers is just 1.5%. Industry leaders in each category have garnered more than 1 million likes and achieved better than 5% respectively. Of the 72 operators evaluated, only 12 exceed industry averages in both categories.

Among “small footprint” operators – those with fewer than 5 million subscribers – index leaders include Orange Jordan; Vodafone Czech Republic, Ireland, and Greece; Telenor Serbia and Norway; O2 Slovakia and Czech Republic; and Singtel Singapore.

“The BillingViews Facebook Success Index provides benchmarks for the communications industry, allows us to measure operators against their peers, and gives us a chance to identify and reward industry leaders for their achievements in using Facebook as a customer interaction channel,” says Ed Finegold, editor and producer for BillingViews. “We are also continuing to evaluate individual operators’ Facebook efforts and define best practices for Social CRM,” Finegold says.