Socialbakers Trends Report shows that more control over advertising spend is needed

Socialbakers publishes a comprehensive report on the most important social media trends of the second quarter of 2019.

The report reflects the current state of the social media world and provides key insights into platform engagement, cost per click (CPC) and click-through rate (CTR) trends, top converting ad placements and the latest data on influencer marketing.

"The data for the second quarter of 2019 shows that marketers who are not investing the majority of their efforts in paid social media optimization, benchmarking and maximizing cross-channel visibility are falling behind," explains Socialbakers CEO Yuval Ben-Itzhak in a statement. "The importance of intensive monitoring and optimization of paid strategy across channels and ad accounts becomes clear when you look at the numbers on which strategies and content are having a positive impact and where there is room for improvement going forward."

Although marketers have increased their overall budget on Instagram, for more than 140,000 brand profiles analyzed in the report, more than 60 percent of all ad spend is still allocated to the Facebook News Feed, rather than diversifying within Instagram into Feed, Stories, Suggested Videos and Instream Videos. (The top 5 ad placements based on relative ad spend were selected for analysis).  

• Mobile remains the decisive platform for brands. Ads are seen 95.1% of the time on mobile devices, but only 4.9% on desktop.
• Of the 50 top brands analyzed on Facebook and Instagram, the top 50 brands on Instagram now have the same target group size as the top 50 brands on Facebook. However, the majority of user engagement takes place on Instagram. (The data refers specifically to the target group of the top 50 company profiles and not to the total number of users on the platform)
• Instagram performs best for fashion and beauty, while the Facebook News Feed continues to lead the way for e-commerce and retail brands.
• Influencer marketing continues to grow. Among the more than 3 million influencer profiles analyzed, the number of Instagram influencers who promote brands and have written posts with #Ad (advertising label) increased by 33% compared to Q2 2018.

For the 50 most important company profiles analyzed on Instagram and Facebook, the target group was almost identical (measured by the number of followers on Instagram and page likes on Facebook). This is an important milestone for Instagram and shows how important the platform has become for brands. While the target group sizes are identical, the majority of user engagement takes place on Instagram. Instagram performs best for fashion and beauty, while the Facebook News Feed continues to lead the way for e-commerce and retail brands.

In addition, Instagram interactions remained constant over the past year. Meanwhile, interactions according to the mean value (median) for Facebook posts are 3.3% behind the level of June 2018.

Although marketers have increased their spending on Instagram, Facebook News Feed still accounts for more than 60 percent of all advertising spend. The Instagram feed ranks second here with 20 percent. The rest of the top 5, including Instagram Stories, Facebook Suggested Video and Facebook Instream Video, combined reach around 10 percent.

The Socialbakers report also shows that around 30 percent of ad spend is invested in non-performing content that scores a C or D for post quality (an average to below average score as determined by Socialbakers AI).

While MarTech and AI are helping companies to better invest their budgets in the most appropriate content - Socialbakers AI rated 62% of posts as A+ or A - there is still room for improvement. With the flood of data and sometimes resulting disorientation, it is important to have a tool that helps to choose the best path and avoid wasting budgets.

Based on almost 50,000 Instagram brand profiles, "Carousel" is the leading format for organic interactions with more than 120 per post. However, the "Carousel" format is only used in 15-18 percent of cases. Based on more than 140,000 Facebook brand profiles analyzed, "Live" is by far the leading format for interactions, but is only used in 4 percent of posts.

The data shows that by using a popular format, brands can avoid wasting resources on posts that don't resonate with their audience. As the figures show, there is plenty of untapped potential with Instagram Carousel and Facebook Live. This offers marketers an easy way to increase engagement with their content.

The number of Instagram influencers who promote brands and have written posts with #Ad increased by 33% in the second quarter of 2019 compared to the second quarter of 2018. This is a big jump. This includes influencers who actually use the #Ad advertising label; however, influencers do not always include the #Ad label in sponsored posts.

"For marketers who need to know which ad spend performs best, book better converting ad placements and partner with top influencers, we're pointing them in the right direction with our Q2 Trend Report," explains Socialbakers CEO Yuval Ben-Itzhak. "Now more than ever, it's critical for brands to use data-driven insights to develop smarter social media strategies that address the latest trends and opportunities."