An Analysis of Facebook Social Media Marketing Key Performance Indicators: the Case of Premier League Brands

Many companies diligently establish their presence on Social Networking Services (SNSs) as they recognize Social Media Marketing (SMM) will be the next "holy grail of marketing". However, yet the true value of SMM remains unclear because marketing based on social networking still defines its best practices and metrics. This paper provides a small step towards understanding how to unlock a potential of SMM through analysis of Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for the flagship SMM platform Facebook. The case study of five largest Premier League brands analyses relationships among Facebook SMM KPIs and identifies several interesting connections. The most important managerial implication of our analysis suggests that the number of Facebook fans, although often criticized as the relevant SMM metric, is the most important SMM KPI.