1. Case Study:
Italian Bank Industry
Facebook Performances of Select Italian
Banking Brands

2. The Study
In this short case study, we monitored and analyzed 6 Italian banking brands. The time
period chosen for this comparison was three months, from October 1 – December 31,
2012. In this case study we focused on Facebook.

3. The Brands
For our comparison we chose 6 Italian banking brands – the largest one with almost
79,000 fans and the smallest one with 6,000 fans. In this study we analyzed the metrics we
believe are the most important for all brands across the majority of markets: Fans,
Engagement, Content and Response Rates.

4. Facebook Fans and Fan Growth
The most successful Italian banking brand in terms
of Total Fans is UniCredit with 78,823 fans. It has
also been the most successful brand in terms of
Fan Growth with total number of new fans
attracted (30,052). However, Banca Mediolanum
received the highest percentage of fan growth with
an astonishing 116.98% increase in fans.

5. Facebook Engagement
Now that we know which brand was the most successful at increasing their number of fans,
let’s have a look at the most successful brand in terms of fan engagement. When we look at
Fan’s Engagement we see that it was Banca Mediolanum – with 1.3294 %, followed by
BNL People (0.3550%) and ING Direct (0.2490 %).
When it comes to the actual total number of interactions (likes, comments and shares)
we can see that the top three brands had very close scores – these were Banco
Mediolanum (9,316), UniCredit (5,943) and ING Direct (4,292).

6. Top Content
When looking at the content that is most engaging, we see that the most successful post
was made by Banca Mediolanum. This post (photo) had an Engagement Rate
of 12.8259% with 803 likes, 29 comments and 260 shares (for our time-frame). The second
most engaging post came from Banca Monte del Pasc with an Engagement Rate of
2.5433%.

7. Content Published
On this page, we will
take a closer look at
how often Italian
banking brands
published content,
what type of
content they
published the most
often and what
type of content
was the most
engaging.
The most active bank brand was UniCredit, which published 175 posts during the
selected period, followed by ING Direct (148) and Banca Mediolanum (104). The most
popular type of content used by the six brands photos.

8. Response Rates to Questions
Several Italian banking brands reached Socially Devoted status (65% Response Rate or
higher with at least 50 questions posted by fans). However, we still believe if a question is
asked it is ALL the brands’ responsibility to respond. The brand with the highest response
rate was BNL People (90%). Second place goes to ING Direct by responding to 77% of
the 415 questions asked.

9. Interesting Facts and Takeaways
» UniCredit has the largest number of total fans – 78,823
» The fastest growing was (real numbers) UniCredit, attracting 7,817
new fans
» Fastest growing (percentage) was Banca Mediolanum with 116.98%
» The Italian banking brands with the highest engagement were
Banca Mediolanum– with 12.8259 %, followed by Banca Monte del
Pasc (2.5433 %)
» The most active brand in communicating its own content was
UniCredit, which published 175 posts during the three month period
» The most popular type of post was photo, which on average is also
the most engaging post type
» BNL People and ING Direct were the most the successful in terms of
responding to fan questions.

10. We hope you enjoyed this short study on the social media performance of
Italian banking brands.
If you have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us.
You can reach our support team at experts@socialbakers.com.
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