How Does Your Social Media Marketing Stack Up Against the TOP 50?
April 16, 2018
The first annual report ranking social media audience, activity and engagement
Social media is basically made for the home and building market: it’s visual, it encourages engagement and it gives manufacturers a way to truly interact with the trade and homeowners.
We wanted to find out which building products manufacturers are killing it when it comes to social – but not just in terms of audience size. In fact, we found that oftentimes, companies with the biggest follower base had lower engagement rates.
That’s why this report delves deeply into what the most engaging building products manufacturers 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 50 leading building products manufacturers. We analyzed post data across a six-month period beginning October 1, 2017 through April 2, 2018.
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 50 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 building products manufacturers and their social media marketing efforts. There are also a few surprises to share with you.
Here is an example of what we found:
- Milwaukee Tool being a leader in total engagement, applause and conversation was a pleasant surprise. Aren’t they a trade-focused brand? Yes.
- The median engagement applause for the Top 50 was 8,090. Benjamin Moore ranked second with 512,000. Applause is calculated by tracking likes and reactions across all tracked social channels.
- The median engagement conversations was 229 with rankings runner-up DeWalt totaling 28,400. Conversations are calculated by tracking comments across all tracked social channels.
- Behr led engagement amplification with 163,000. The median rate was 1,160 for the Top 50. Amplification is calculated by tracking retweets and shares across all tracked social channels.
- Another trade-focused brand, Simpson Doors, is the surprise leader with an average engagement rate per post of 3.22% compared the Top 50 average of 1.37%.
The largest audience in the Top 50 was 4.64 million across channels for Electrolux. Next in line was DeWalt with an audience of 2.06 million. The median audience size for the Top 50 is 85,400.
Social media activity is measured in posts and pins. The manufacturers in the kitchen and bath industry lead the ranking for activity with as the overall number with 1,880 posts during the six-month reporting period or an average of 9.69 per day. The average number of posts per day with this group is 2.31
THERE IS MORE
We can see from these findings having the greatest number of followers or posts or having a consumer focus versus a trade focus means you are engaging with your audience.
We dug deeper into the research to determine the best social media and content strategies and executions that are driving the leaders to the top of their respective rankings. The research includes examples of the best performing posts and pins across channels, the type of posts that perform best, the kind of media that ranking strongest, best days and time of day, and more.
All of this research can assist these building products manufacturers and others to improve and optimize their investments as social media marketers. The only thing remaining is the expertise to make it happen.
