2020 Top 25 Architectural Firms on Social Media

2020 Top 25 Architectural Firms on Social Media

The first industry report ranking social media audience, activity and engagement

Inspired by the success of our Top 50 Building Products Manufacturers reports the past two years, we enlisted the same methodology with the leading architectural firms to determine which firms are using social media best – but not just in terms of audience size. In fact, we found that often times, firms with the biggest follower base had lower engagement rates.

Social media is perfectly suited to these architectural firms: it’s visual, it encourages engagement and it gives firms a way to truly interact with their clients.

This report delves deeply into what the most engaging architectural firms are doing across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube to give you some great insights and hopefully inspire your next efforts.

METHODOLOGY

 

We used Rival IQ to analyze social media posts across all social channels for 25 leading architectural firms. We analyzed post data across a six-month period beginning July 1, 2019 through January 6, 2020.

We gathered data using Rival IQ’s cross-channel ranking capability, as well as channel-specific rankings for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest and YouTube. We are reporting the Top 25 rankings for total engagement, ratings of engagement per post, applause (reaction), conversation (interaction), amplification (sharing), total audience and total activity.

Engagement is defined as measurable interaction on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares and reactions. Engagement rate is calculated based on all these interactions divided by total follower count.

We’ve also provided rankings for each individual channel.

KEY FINDINGS

 

The report is rich with insights and information about the leading architectural firms and their social media marketing efforts. There are also a few surprises to share with you.

Here is an example of what we found:

• Skidmore, Owings & Merrill (SOM) is the leader in total engagement and applause and second in conversation. They also are #5 in amplification and they have the largest audience with 235,000 cross-channel followers.
• The median engagement applause for the Top 25 is 10,800 reactions. Gensler ranks second with 166,000 reactions. Applause is calculated by tracking likes and reactions across all tracked social channels.
• The median engagement conversations are 1,440 with rankings leader Gensler. Conversations are calculated by tracking comments across all tracked social channels.
• HKS leads engagement amplification with 1,940. The median rate is 433 for the Top 25. Amplification is calculated by tracking retweets and shares across all tracked social channels.
• The median audience size is 24,500 with Gensler again in the second spot with 159,000 followers. It is interesting to see double digit growth in audience size over the past year.

The leader in the number of posts measured as social media activity is Kohn Pedersen Fox Associates (KPF) with 1,670 posts in six months. The median number of posts is 346 and the engagement leader, SOM, posted 680 during the same period.

Instagram is the preferred social media platform of the top performing firms.  Whereas, Pinterest and YouTube, two powerful social media platforms are effectively ignored by architectural firms. Do you see an opportunity for leadership with big benefits here?

THERE IS MORE

 

We dug deeper into the research to determine the best social media and content strategies, as well as the highest performing content and executions that are driving the leaders to the top of their respective rankings. The research provides examples of the best performing posts and campaigns across channels, the type of posts that perform best, the kind of media that ranks the strongest, best days and time of day, and more.

All of this research can assist architectural firms to improve and optimize their investments as social media marketers. The only thing remaining is the expertise to make it happen.