Unmetric, the Social Media Benchmarking and Competitive Intelligence Company analyzed the Facebook numbers of 15 leading US Insurance companies over a one-month period ending September 29, 2011; the list included popular Facebook pages like those of Farmers Insurance, GEICO, New York Life Insurance Company, State Farm, The Hartford, Allstate Insurance, American Family Insurance, MetLife, Natiowide Insurance, TIAA-CREF and Northwestern Mutual.
While it was observed that the average page added almost 6,000 fans to its tribe in the last month, brands like MetLife saw especially high growth (35,000 fans), and SafeAuto Insurance saw the highest growth rate with a 180% growth in fan numbers. There were interesting differences in the frequency of updates with MetLife, TIAA-CREF and All State posting, on an average, twice a day on their Facebook walls while brands like Aflac and GEICO posted less frequently - once in four days, on an average, and Farmers Insurance did not post anything at all since June 2011 in spite of having the largest number of fans.
State Farm and All State see the most fan posts with an average of over 7 posts a day by their community. MetLife seems to be engaging best with its community, closely followed by SafeAuto Insurance. Interestingly, Liberty Mutual and The Hartford had the best "net positive sentiment" on their Facebook walls.
More data on insurance companies' social media and other sectors' social media is available on Unmetric, thanks to its growing database of the social media analytics of over a thousand brands across the world. The company observes that most brands are flying blind on social media and that the absence of relative benchmarks so far has proved a detriment to big brands who are used to competitive benchmarking and intelligence on other media.
Unmetric is currently being evaluated by marquee brands from Fortune 100 companies. Unmetric's analytics engine is powered by an interesting mix of intelligent algorithms and a team of human analysts who dissect the content strategies of brands on Facebook. More information is available at www.unmetric.com