How does Nando’s UAE Engage their Social Media Audience?

Nando’s gets the credit for putting Mozambican and Portuguese food on the global casual dining map. In lieu of saying thanks for their peri-peri sauce, here’s an analysis of Nando’s UAE’s social media performance. Using Unmetric Analyze, I evaluated how they did on Facebook the last quarter (July – September 2016).

First off, let’s take a look at the highlights:

1. Nando’s UAE has 51,627 Fans.
2. They posted 63 times during this period.
3. On the whole, Nando’s UAE’s Facebook Posts received 1,541 Likes, 513 Comments and 393 Shares.
4. They have a good mix of content. Photos made up more than three-quarters of their content.

Now, let us dive into how their content performs.

A quick scroll through Nando’s UAE’s Posts will show you that they have original content. Over the course of the three month period studied here, the brand Posted 9 gifs, 5 videos and 48 photos. They do not repost something they have already published. Even photos that are used more than once have unique copy accompanying them.

What is genius about their content strategy is that they have something for everyone. For people like me who are just looking for an excuse to go to Nando’s, they post stunning pictures of their fare. The copy advertises new dishes, offers etc. During the period studied here, they introduced a new menu. The Facebook Page let Fans know about the exciting new additions with the hashtag #TrySomethingNandos. There were 18 such Posts.

Nando’s UAE ran a series of Posts aimed at bringing in tourists who visit the Palm or Burj Khalifa. These provided directions to the nearest Nando’s joint. Check out the Post below:

Nando’s did a clever spin on the #followmeto series that is still a social media sensation.

You would think that times must be hard for casual dining chains like Nando’s with every other person being on a diet. Well, the brand took this as an opportunity to show off the range of dishes it has for fitness freaks. What’s more, they even partnered with the Fitness First gym chain. Nando’s offered exclusive, healthy meals for customers who had a Fitness First membership. They also promised the first 50 customers to dine at one of their outlets, one day access to the gym.

These Posts don’t get engagement levels that are out of the world. Here’s Nando’s most engaging Post:

The Post above advertised a Facebook contest run by the brand. It received 476 Reactions, 428 Comments and 292 Shares. Contests are always a great way to ramp up your audience engagement but you should always make sure the contest is relevant to your brand. As more people Like, Comment and Share, the brand’s visibility on Facebook will go up. To get social media audiences to participate in your contests, paid promotion is the way to go.

The restaurant chain’s Posts receive on average, a Reach of 1,600 and close to 3,000 Impressions. The only Post they Promoted had an estimated Reach of 50,000 and 85,000 Impressions. The huge difference makes the case for Nando’s to promote more of their content.

The graph below shows the Reach Nando’s UAE’s Posts received:

Take a look at the engagement that Nando’s UAE’s Posts received:

The spikes in all these engagement markers coincide with the Promoted Post.

It is sad indeed that brands cannot just create great content and wait for engagement to come knocking. However, with such a strong case being made for promotion, Nando’s needs to allocate some fraction of their social media budget for promoting their content.

CHECK OUT UNMETRIC.COM

Timing

Nando’s UAE published content mostly between 6-7 P.M. local time.

The Posts published during this time brought in the most engagement as well.

If you look at the amount of content and the engagement Nando’s receives on various days of the week, you’ll notice something interesting:

It is surprising that they do not have any content on the weekends (Friday & Saturday in the UAE). Since casual dining restaurants get a lot of business on weekends, this seems like a lost opportunity. This led me to check what publishing tool they use to post to Facebook. All of the content is published directly from Facebook.

If you look at the graph you can see that they get great engagement on Thursdays. They run relatively fewer Posts on that day. A great way to increase engagement levels would be to schedule a few Posts in advance for the weekends. You can also experiment with different timings within a day. By monitoring the engagement levels these Posts receive, Nando’s UAE’s social media strategy can be perfected.

To ensure that such dedicated content creation efforts do not go unnoticed, the brand should promote a greater fraction of content. Add a social media scheduling tool to the mix and you are looking at a brand that is going to take over Facebook!

CHECK OUT UNMETRIC.COM