Facebook Battle: Budweiser VS Alexander Keith's

Facebook is a massive tool brands use to market products, events or new ideas.  It's a social media platform that allows companies to reach a widespread audience.  Today I will be looking at the Facebook pages of Alexander Keith's and Budweiser to see what they do to effectively market themselves and I will rate them on a scale of 1-5.

I have designed the chart below to answer the following 4 questions:

1.  How often does each brand post?

2.  What kind of content does each brand post (promotional, discounts and coupons,   how-to’s, industry related events, games, images, infographics, etc.)

3. Does each brand use the 50/50 rule?

4. Keyword sentences used by either brand on their posts

Alexander Keith’s	Budweiser
Not Often. Within the past 3 months, they have made 2 posts.  None so far in the month of March, and in Feb. & Jan. Last year they made couple posts in December about holiday gifts and posted almost every other day in November & October.	Very Often. They make posts almost every other day and are very active in responding to comments made on these posts.
A lot of the content that Keith’s posts are promotional, coupons and industry related.  Most of their posts talk about new brews that they will be introducing soon, merchandise that they are selling for the holidays or weather related & posts about activities to do such as taking a tour of the brewery or trying out new beers at local bars.	Because its hockey season and the playoffs are around the corner.  A lot of the posts they have made are all promotional regarding the Giant goal light that is travelling across Canada.  Their marketing campaign to get people involved is enabling people to submit their names to be engraved on the Goal light when it comes to their area. 1 recent post that they made that differs from the others is one about drinking and driving, with a video attached.  The video is a speaker from Budweiser talking at SXSW festival.
Not Really. Most of Alexander Keith’s posts are regarding their own personal brand.  The only recent post not directly promoting their brand was an article about how a 120 year old bottle was found on the bottom of the ocean of the cost of Halifax and it contained Keith’s beer.	Most of their posts like I said before is about the goal light.  The only 2 other posts that aren’t about Budweiser is drinking and driving.  Both posts have videos attached to them, making it easily accessible for consumers scrolling through Facebook.  It’s a huge issue and makes them look very good.
19+, Keith’s Brewery	Canada’s goal light, http://www.budweiser.ca/en/, #LightTheLamp #TackleImpossible

As you can see, there is a huge difference in how both these brands use Facebook actively to reach out to their demographic.  Lets see what their most effective posts were and what they did to stand out.

Alexander Keith’s

It’s simple.  It’s not trying to directly sell you a product or bombard you with info you don’t care about.  It’s simply relating to everyone who likes to celebrate St. Patricks day and is reminding you to have a Keith’s. Shows 4 people together and represents a good time.  This post so far has 635 Likes, 98 Shares & 19 Comments.

Budweiser

Its powerful and effective.  Almost everyone agrees that drinking and driving is wrong and many people have been affected by it.  What Budweiser has done with this post is simply create awareness.  They aren’t trying to promote their product, they are more promoting their ethics on certain topics.  It’s a short post with a powerful statement “Join us to put an end to drinking and driving and‪ #‎TackleImpossible” Attached is a video of a spokesperson, making it easily accessible rather than people reading.  

Budweiser vs Alexander Keith’s: Which beer can Canadians find easiest in their Internet fridge?

Introduction

SEO is an important consideration for marketers because it determines how easy it is for users and search engines to find and navigate through your website. The easier it is, the more likely people will find it.  In Canada, 2 of the top beers are Budweiser and Alexander Keith’s, Keith’s being from Nova Scotia and Budweiser being an American company who moved into Canada under the name Budweiser Canada.  Alexander Keith’s is a relatively quiet beer when it comes to marketing and brand exposure yet it is very popular in Canada; while Budweiser is all over the place especially when it comes to hockey.  Which page makes the most of their name? Lets’ find out:

Screen Captures of both home pages:

Budweiser Home Page

Alexander Keith's Home Page

SEO Considerations	Budweiser	Alexander Keith’s
URL:	http://www.budweiser.ca/en/	http://keiths.ca/#/
Keywords used on each site:	Goal, For you, Enjoy Responsibly, Canada	Our brews, Brewery, Ipa, Hop ale
Frequency of Keywords:	Goal(4), For you(3), Enjoy Responsibly(1), Canada(3)	Our Brews(2), Brewery(3), Ipa(2), Hop Ale(2)
Locations of keywords:	Top of the page, middle inside photos(links to more information)	Top of the page, middle of the page as links for more information
Keywords in URL:	None	None
<title>	Budweiser Canada	Alexander Keith’s
<meta name="description" content=“”/>	N/A	“Welcome beer enthusiasts. Learn everything you ever wanted to know about Alexander Keith’s Fine Beers, the Brewing Process or even the great man himself”
<meta name="keywords" content=""/>	N/A	N/A
Site upload speed:
Quality of written content:	8/10	6/10
Quality of Visual Content:	10/10	8/10
Alt Text used:	Twitter, Facebook	Facebook
Captions used:	N/A	N/A
Quality of Layout:	9/10	9/10
Call-to-action:	“Bar Finder: This Bar’s for you” “This gear’s for you”	“Find an Alexander Keith’s”
Anchor Text:	“New Privacy Policy”, “Third Party Advertising”, Terms & Conditions”	N/A
Mobile Friendly:	Yes	Yes
Content is “shareable”:	No	No
Links to Social Media:	Facebook, Twitter	Facebook
SERP ranking results when using keywords from this table:	http://budweiser.ca/goallab/en/innovation/canadas-goal-light/ is ranked 1st in Canada	http://keiths.ca/ is ranked 28th in Canada

 Summary:

Both Webpages need to be updated.  Neither allow you to share any of their content and both pages do not have keywords on their source page.  Only commonly used words on the pages themselves help them show up in search engines.  Alexander Keith’s only has a link to their Facebook page, which is probably why they don’t have many Twitter followers.  Budweiser does not have any Alt Text and Alexander Keith’s has no Anchor text. Both pages are poorly set up and could benefit from actually updating the source codes. Also Alexander Keith’s ranking in the SEO from their commonly used words is ranked 28^th in Canada, which is not good.

Conclusion:

Both companies are well known and loved in Canada.  Alexander Keith’s doesn’t promote much as they let their taste decide who their fans are.  Budweiser uses hockey as its main marketing campaign.  With the goal light and air hockey table gear.  It really likes to stress that it’s the beer for you and your friends.  Overall the winner of the SEO search analysis is Budweiser Canada…The king of beers!

APA Citations:

http://budweiser.ca/en/

http://keiths.ca/#/

https://serps.com/tools/rank_checker
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/