Accommodation and pharmaceutical brands were the buzz categories on Facebook over the month of March, gaining the most new fans and highest engagement rates according the ‘Australian Facebook Performance Report’.

Findings from the study, released by social media agency Online Circle, show that while all industries grew their volume of fans (‘likes’) between February and March, the highest relative fan growth was experienced by some of the less followed industries with ‘Travel – Accommodation’ growing by 20.9% and ‘Pharmaceutical’ up by 14.5%.

The two fastest growing industries also experienced the highest engagement rate – accommodation brands scored an engagement rate (a simple equation of number ‘talking about this’* page divided by number of fans) of 6.1% and pharmaceutical fan pages commanded a rate of 5.2%.

The report, which averages five point-in-time snapshots of fan and interaction numbers in February and March to generate like and engagement figures, also shows strong increases in fan numbers among automotive brands, up by 13.0% and the most followed industry, ‘FMCG – Snackfoods’, up by 11.9%.

‘Retail – Grocery & Alcohol’ and ‘Automotive’ also had standout engagement rates of 4.4% and 4.1% respectively with strong promotional and marketing activity support driving the performance. The report claims the findings highlight Facebook users “willingness to engage in mutually beneficial support of specific brands that relate to their lifestyle and how they view themselves.”

Based on number of fans, retail-orientated industries make up five of the top six positions, with ‘FMCG – Snackfoods’ holding on to the top spot, adding over 300,000 new fans collectively during March. The rankings for March 2012 were steady against January 2012’s figures with no change in position amongst the five leading industries.

The top performers in each category were:

Retail – Grocery & Alcohol

Most liked: 7-Eleven Australia – 200,075 fans
Most talked about: 7-Eleven Australia – 12,232 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Lollyworld – 8.8% engagement rate

Banking and Financial

Most liked: Commonwealth Bank – 128,377 fans
Most talked about: Commonwealth Bank – 3348 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Citibank Australia – 21.6% engagement rate

Travel – Airlines

Most liked: Qantas – 143,232 fans
Most talked about: Qantas – 3496 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Airlines of Tasmani – 6.9% engagement rate

FMCG – Snackfoods

Most liked: Pringles Australia – 721,316 fans
Most talked about: Pringles Australia – 32,804 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: M&M’s Australia – 9.0% engagement rate

FMCG – Beverages

Most liked: Coca-Cola Australia – 747,272 fans
Most talked about: Coca-Cola Australia – 11,171 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: SOLO the Original Thirst Crusher – 10.6% engagement rate

Automotive

Most liked: Holden – 267,753 fans
Most talked about: Mazda Australia – 9007 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Mazda Australia – 28.3% engagement rate

Energy and Utilities

Most liked: Lumo Energy – 26,214 fans
Most talked about: Lumo Energy – 232 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Make It Cheaper Australia – 15.7% engagement rate

Telecommunications

Most liked: Voadafone Australia – 141,910 fans
Most talked about: Optus – 3321 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Telstra – 5.5% engagement rate

Pharmaceuticals

Most liked: Panadol Australia – 42,796 fans
Most talked about: Panadol Australia – 4128 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Swisse Vitamins – 11.8% engagement rate

Travel – Accommodation

Most liked: Wotif.com – 68,621 fans
Most talked about: Wotif.com – 3,441 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: Best Western Hotels Australia/ NewZealand – 27.6% engagement rate

Retail – Departments stores

Most liked: CatchOfTheDay.com.au – 222,386 fans
Most talked about: David Jones – 5966 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: SupermarketDeals – 11.4% engagement rate

Retail – Fashion

Most liked: Jay Jays – 390,770 fans
Most talked about: Lorna Jane – 19,710 people talking about page
Most engaged audience: MIISHKA – 6.7% engagement rate

The report, which is released bimonthly (every two months), doesn’t analyse the sentiment of interactions with the brands and only a list of brands designed to be “representative of those brands leading the way in each vertical”

*‘People talking about this’ is defined by Facebook as the number of unique people who have created a story about a page in the past week, by liking the page or one of its posts, posting on its wall, answering a question, responding to an event, mentioning the page, tagging the page in a photo or checkin, or recommending the page or place.