As of October 2016, Starbucks had 11.8 million followers on Twitter and 11.8 million followers on Instagram. On Facebook, the company has amassed almost 36.5 million fans. But how many of these users actually engage with the company’s content? In September 2016, we scraped the Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook accounts of close to 100 companies to better understand how and when they post content, as well as how successful their content is. Unsurprisingly, we found that only a small percentage of brands’ followers engaged with brands’ social media content.
Methodology
In September 2016, we scraped:
- The last 99 posts of 89 companies on Instagram
- An average of the last 2,500 posts of 77 companies on Facebook
- The last 3,100 tweets of 97 companies on Twitter
We chose a cross section of popular brands in different verticals. Our list was not exhaustive, and only captures a particular period of time on each social media platform. Our analysis is meant to be a snapshot of a particular moment for top brands on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. We used Minimaxir’s code to scrape posts and reactions on Facebook.
For more information, here is a full list of the companies whose accounts we scraped.
When Do Brands Post on Social Media?
On Instagram, brands post the most content on Thursdays and Fridays; however, brands get the most likes per post on the weekends.
The same approximate pattern is true for Facebook, where Thursday and Friday are the most popular days for posting content, but Sunday has the highest number of reactions per post (3,300 reactions on average).
Because some brands use their Twitter accounts for customer service – while others do not – we did not analyze the frequency of Twitter posts by day of the week. This analysis would have been skewed by customers reaching out for assistance.
Which Brands Had the Most Retweets, Reactions, or Likes on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram?
The companies which have the highest number of likes or retweets on each social network are not surprising. On Twitter, Disney and Chanel clinch the No. 1 and No. 2 spots, with an average of 985 and 731 retweets per post, respectively.
Chanel has the most reactions per post on Facebook, with Starbucks taking second place.
On Instagram, Nike’s athletic visuals earned it first place. Starbucks’ artistic snapshots of drinks garnered an average of 283,000 likes per post, bringing the company to second place.
Which Brands Have the Most Engagement on Facebook and Instagram?
On Facebook, ThinkGeek and SpaceX had the most engagement.
On Instagram, video game and technology companies topped the charts for highest engagement, with BioWare, Bungie, Boeing, and SpaceX all getting more than 30 likes per 1,000 followers.
Average Post on Each Social Media Platform, by Vertical
On Facebook, companies in different verticals had different posting habits. Their audiences also tended to react to their content in different ways.
- Travel posts tended to be the longest, with an average of 25 words per post.
- E-Commerce and Retail and Health and Fitness companies posted the most frequently, with an average of 10 posts per week.
On Instagram, companies in different verticals tended not to go crazy with hashtags. There were a few verticals that did stand out, though.
- Companies in Automotive, Technology, and Travel all used an average of three hashtags per post.
- Companies in Fashion and Beauty posted content six times a week – the most frequent of any vertical.
- Technology companies were the wordiest, with an average of 28 words per post.
- Average tweet length ranged from 15 words (Health and Fitness) to 18 words (Technology).
- Each vertical used an average of one hashtag per tweet, with little variation.
Accumulating followers is only half the battle. A successful social media account engages a large portion of its followers on a regular basis. On Facebook and Instagram, video game and technology companies tended to have the highest level of user engagement. Here are a few lessons we can learn from these high-engagement social media profiles.
- Feature user-generated content.
- Bungie’s Instagram page almost exclusively features fan art.
- BioWare’s Instagram page displays pictures of fans cosplaying BioWare’s characters.
- Highlight your “cool factor.”
- SpaceX posted this close-up video of their team testing a new rocket engine.
Depending on your goals, quality of followers may be more important than quantity. Each online community is different, so listen to your audience and stay true to your brand. For more information, check out our research about the motivations for sharing on Facebook.
