A recent social media study by Hearsay Social suggests that fans of local pages are far more engaging than larger corporate fans. In a study of over 14 million social interactions from consumers they found that the typical post from a local page reaches five times the fans as a corporate post. Eight times as many fans will engage in that post, with a like or a comment.

The study looks at a range of Facebook page types, from local business pages with less than a hundred fans, to corporate flagship pages with millions of fans. At first it seems that large corporations have the advantage here, with the larger amount of fans, but small business fans are five times more likely to see the posts and eight times more likely to engage. In short, one local fan is worth 40 large corporate fans.

“What the research shows is that, pound for pound, local fans deliver exponentially more marketing value than corporate fans,” said Craig LeGrande, Managing Director at Mainstay Salire. “These results suggest that a corporate-based Facebook presence is fine, but that’s only the tip of the iceberg. A broader strategy that integrates your corporate Facebook presence with a network of local pages has the potential to drive dramatically greater business results.”

“These new results from Mainstay reaffirm that the smartest social marketing is happening at the local level,” said Hearsay Social CEO Clara Shih.

The participants in this study were primarily businesses in the insurance, financial services, and retail. The pages ranged in audience size from 30 Facebook fans to the tens of millions.