According to the ‘Car Brands in India’ report released by Unmetric, the social media benchmarking company, about how top car brands are using Facebook in India, Audi and Tata Motors lead the sector whereas Toyota and Chevrolet are yet to make a major impact. The car market in India has come a long way since the Premier and the Ambassador, with today’s discerning buyer being able to choose from a Rs. 1.5 lakh Tata Nano up to a Rs. 1.5 crore Audi R8.

The report analyzed how 16 car manufacturers in India are using Facebook to leverage their marketing efforts. The report examines every aspect of the brands’ Q3 social media strategy (July 1st and September 30th).

The report states that despite being a new entrant in the market compared to the other manufacturers, Audi tops the performance table with an Unmetric Score of 53. At number two is India’s own Tata Motors with an Unmetric Score of 52 while another German brand, BMW, drives home in third place with an Unmetric Score of 40.

In terms of raw numbers, the Indian car manufacturers come out on top. Mahindra, Maruti Suzuki and Tata have 91 lakh fans – more fans than every other car brand combined. Not surprising, perhaps, considering that these brands control over 52% of the market. It was the aspirational German brands which dominated the foreign car makers. BMW, Audi, Mercedes and VW have 39 lakh fans between them despite commanding less than 0.8% of the market share.

The average fan of a car Facebook page in India is a young, single male, under the age of 21. While we know (and hope) that not too many 19 year olds are driving around BMW’s or even XUV’s, it should come as no surprise to see these figures since over 80% of Facebook users in India are young, single and male.

“Once again it was the premium German marques that got the most people talking. Audi blazed a trail with an average engagement score of 490. There was a surprising showing from Mitsubishi, which achieved an average engagement score of 265. This was followed up by BMW and Mercedes, who managed an average engagement score of 222 and 144 respectively,” the report said.

To find out how different types of content affect engagement on Facebook, Unmetric uses ‘human computing’ along with advanced algorithms to uncover and dissect the content strategy of brands on Facebook. In this analysis of car manufacturers in India, it was found that most brands were talking about themselves while, in fact, talking about the car sector in general scored better engagement among the fans.

Unmetric also sub-categorised the “talking about the brand” posts. This analysis found that most brands posted news about the brand but what fans really responded to were new model announcements and events such as the Delhi Auto Expo.

For example, on August 14th, 2012, BMW posted the most engaging piece of content for the time period analysed. It was about a new concept car and asked if people would want to go and see it. The post got an engagement score of 2,264 thanks to 66,759 Likes, 3,415 Comments and 15,811 Shares. No other post came close to this level of engagement although all brands saw higher engagement for new model announcements.

The study also looked at how well the car manufacturers in India were responding to fan posts. Most pages responded to less than 10% of fan posts, with Tata Motors replying to the highest percentage of fan posts.Tata Motors cemented their position as the number one caring brand by responding to fan posts in just over 3 hours on average. Hyundai was the second most responsive brand, replying to fan posts in around 7 hours on average. Chevrolet came in third with an average response time of 11 hours. Honda sat at the bottom of the table of brands that engaged with fans, taking over 3 days on average to reply to fans.

“German auto manufacturers leading the way when it comes to social media performance in India. With sales of just over 7,000 units in the last 12 months, we can probably count on one hand the number of 19 year olds that are able to buy their own Mercedes, so why does the brand page have nearly 6 lakh young fans? I think what we are seeing is the younger generation defining their own personal brand by aligning themselves with brands associated with money, wealth, success and power. It’s interesting to see when compared to Facebook pages of car brands in North America because it is the everyday brands like Ford, Chevrolet and Chrysler that lead the way there on social media performance,” said Unmetric CEO, Lakshmanan Narayan.

Key to rating the performance of the various car brands is the Unmetric Score, a unique measurement designed to give ‘sector aware’ context to social media activity. The Car Brands in India Report highlights successes in specific metrics, while the combined Unmetric Score represents those brands with the best social media performance on Facebook. The score is a scientific blend of various qualitative and quantitative social media metrics, weighted and balanced to produce a single benchmarkable number.