Members v Fans: The Top Tech Facebook Pages

Following our publication of rankings for the UK’s top tech tweeters and leading technology forums, today I want to look at the Group and Fan pages on Facebook. For this, I focused on technology brands and simply compared the numbers of “members” and “fans” to compile two sets of rankings.

The Top Ten Fan pages, ranked by number of Fans, are as follows:

1. Facebook
2. YouTube
3. Firefox
4. Nintendo Wii
5. Nokia
6. Verizon
7. Google
8. Chrome
9. Blackberry
10. Skype

While here are the Top Ten Group pages for technology brands:

1. Ubuntu
2. Nintendo Wii
3. Linux
4. Java
5. Twitter
6. Windows 7
7. Android
8. IBM
9. Zynga
10. Nokia

It’s immediately obvious that the Group pages, with a couple of exceptions, are home to far more technical content than the Fan pages. Not only are a number of leading Groups devoted to progamming languages and operating systems rather than the consumer-friendly devices and platforms that dominate the top Fan pages, but the scale of engagement with Groups reflects a greater dedication among their members: the highest ranking Groups have tens of thousands of members, while the most popular tech consumer brands boast hundreds of thousands of fans.

Although there is a strong argument for Group pages catering to a more hardcore audience, there is also a clear sense that the Fan pages have the momentum. And with Fan pages centering on content produced by the brands themselves rather than members’ discusssion, Facebook increasingly seems to represent both greater opportunity and greater responsibility for communications professionals.

We’ve also published our Top 10 UK Technology Blogs