How Intel’s Cheeky Photo Went Viral on Facebook

It’s not just processors that Intel knows how to do well. They know a thing or two about marketing those processors as well. A straw poll in my office revealed that nearly everyone could ‘bommm‘ the Intel jingle that is played with every ad they show. As brands have become more social over the last few years, Intel’s marketing excellence has translated into a social media presence that is second to none.

We were first alerted to Intel’s amazing content strategy on Facebook when we received an email alert from the Unmetric platform that basically said “look, Intel has done something incredible, go and check it out“. That amazing thing turned out to be this rather cheeky post below. And no kids, we aren’t going to explain it for you.

This post really is amazing, not just because it’s a rather good analogy, but because of the level of engagement that it generated for Intel. Over 100,000 people Liked the post which is an achievement in itself – very few brands have been able to get that many Likes. There was also over 34,500 Shares, which means that Intel’s reach went far and wide. In fact, we wouldn’t be surprised if well over one million people ended up seeing this post. Do keep in mind that Facebook limits the number of fans that see a post to around 12-16% of the total fan numbers, so even though Intel has over 12m Likes, not all 12m of them are likely to see it. Getting fans to share the post helps expand their reach to a far more people.

The chart below shows how engaging the post was, using the Unmetric Engagement Score, which factors in the number of Likes, Comments, Shares and estimated impressions for each post.

Intel is already doing a fine job of engaging their fans with an average engagement score of 181 per post compared to the sector average of 33. The Computer Babies post resonated so well with so many people that it got an Engagement Score of 1,208. This is the most engaging post Intel has ever posted to their Facebook page. The previous most engaging post scored 955.

We wanted to find out if the viral nature of the Computer Babies post impacted the fan growth rate of Intel in any way. We looked at the growth rate ten days before the post and ten days after to see how the growth changed. The results are in the chart below.

Intel’s fan growth rate only increased slightly after the Computer Babies post. Their growth rate is also far lower than the sector average. However, considering Intel has over 12m fans, a growth rate of 2.10% in 10 days represents over 255,000 new fans – more than the total number of fans for many other brands. Of course, we can’t attribute the increase in fan growth to this one post, but it could have been a factor thanks to its huge reach.

It just goes to show, even big brands could consider being more risqué and cheeky with their content strategy every now and then. When you try to ensure no one gets offended, no one is interested.

Methodology

All data has been compiled and analyzed from the Unmetric platform which tracks dozens of metrics to enable brands to benchmark themselves against competitors and their industry sector. Gain access to all this data by claiming a 10 day free trial.