Advertising spend on social media rises again after pandemic
In its Social Media Trends Report, Socialbakers highlights the current trends for the second quarter of 2020. Among the key findings regarding advertising budgets, cost-per-click (CPC), and time spent online on Facebook is a return to pre-COVID-19 pandemic levels.
A significant development is the increasing popularity of organic videos posted by brands to increase engagement within the community, which is largely at home or working from home during the pandemic.
"Q2 was a dynamic quarter from a marketing perspective. Ad spend recovered and CPC rebounded as businesses in most regions and industries returned to normal," says Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO of Socialbakers. "In early June, we saw a drop in ad spend, especially in the US, due to #BlackoutTuesday. However, ad spend returned to normal very quickly. The end of June then saw a further drop in ad spend - most likely due to the Facebook ad boycott, which could also have an impact on the figures for the third quarter of 2020."
Advertising expenditure on the rise and approaching pre-Covid-19 levels
Spending on social media ads increased significantly worldwide in the second quarter of 2020. Brands spent 26% more on advertising globally in the second quarter than at the end of the first quarter, when budgets were still very much affected by the coronavirus pandemic. Every industry analyzed showed an increase in advertising spend in the last three months. However, there were instances where ad spend temporarily declined, likely due to the online social movements #BlackoutTuesday and the Facebook ad boycott organized by civil rights and activist groups.
The impact of the Facebook advertising boycott hit North America the hardest, where spending fell by 31.6% in the last two weeks of the second quarter. With the boycott expected to last until at least July, advertising spend is likely to continue to fall at the start of the third quarter.
Cost-per-click increases worldwide, but still below previous year's level
The cost per click for all brand ad accounts fell during the pandemic, reaching a low of USD 0.075 in April. However, by the end of Q2 2020, they had risen 42.7 percent to $0.107, according to data from Socialbakers. While the increase shows a recovery as most countries have overcome the initial impact of Covid-19, the CPC was still 23.6% lower than at the end of Q2 2019 (USD 0.107 vs USD 0.140).
Online activity of Facebook users at pre-pandemic level
The data from Socialbakers shows that with the lifting of the quarantine, online user activity worldwide largely returned to pre-pandemic levels. Relative Facebook interactions fell from 100% to 50.8% in the second quarter before increasing again at the end of the quarter. After the abnormal increase in mid-March, the decline is mainly a return to normal levels.
Instagram dominates in terms of audience size and interactions
Instagram continued its upward trend in the second quarter, with the platform growing its audience and almost reaching its interaction peak at the end of the quarter. The reach of the profiles of Instagram's top 50 brands is now 31 percent greater than Facebook. Engagement also remained significantly stronger on Instagram, with 18.7x more interactions than on Facebook, despite 70.7% of all brand posts being published on Facebook.
Video content is growing and shows great potential
In light of the pandemic in March 2020, video content on social media platforms began to skyrocket. Twitter - with over 20 percent of tweets from brand pages - has the highest share of video content on social media platforms, compared to Facebook and Instagram. On Instagram, video content accounted for 17.1% of all posts in the second quarter of 2020, an increase of 16.3% compared to the second quarter of 2019. Facebook saw a 5.3% increase in video compared to the same period last year, with video content accounting for 18% of content on the platform. In addition, Facebook Live usage increased by 27 percent compared to Q2 2019 and by 126 percent over the last four months. Facebook Live was by far the most engaging format on the platform in the second quarter.
"Video is a great way to increase organic engagement, especially during the pandemic," says Socialbakers CEO Yuval Ben-Itzhak. "Due to consistently high engagement, we expect many brands to continue using Facebook Live and live video in Q3 and Q4. The message is clear: brands that are not investing in live video are missing out on potential engagement."
The report from the social media marketing platform Socialbakers shows the current social media trends of the second quarter of 2020, taking a closer look at fundamental trends in online marketing and changes in the social media advertising business.
