There’s little question that brands, even so-called unglamorous B2B brands that might seem to lack a compelling visual story, are finding Instagram a useful outlet for messaging. That was illustrated in our lead story last week (PRNP, April 24).
Courtesy of Shareablee data provided exclusively to PR News Pro, there was healthy growth in consumer engagement with Instagram posts from both B2B and B2C brands during Q4 2016 (Oct. 1-Dec. 31) vs. the year-ago period. Consumer engagement with posts containing video content grew even more rapidly.
Engagement, or total actions, is defined as the total of reactions and shares to posts.
For U.S. B2B brands, consumer engagement with Instagram content jumped 54% in Q4 2016 vs. the figure in Q4 2015. Consumer engagement with B2B brands’ video content rose 76% over the 2015 Q4 number. Social media stalwart IMG Models Worldwide and its nearly 1 million followers maintained its number one position with more than 5.2 million actions or engagements, almost 4 times more than the second-highest brand, Sotheby’s.
Consumer engagement with IMG’s Instagram content was up 33% from last year, with video interactions making up 62% of engagement, says Shareablee’s Nathalie Nuta. As has been the case often, its top post featured Bella Hadid and other top models boarding a flight to the Victoria’s Secret fashion show. The post has received more than 42,000 actions.
Certainly IMG is an usual B2B brand in that it clearly has a visual element. The other brands on the B2B lack the immediate connection to a visual story. Still, brands like IBM, FedEx and Kickstarter are finding visual stories to tell on Instagram. Software firm HubSpot experienced the most growth among the top 10 since Q4 2016. It generated more than 41,800 Instagram actions in Q4 2016, 190% more than the year prior.
On the B2C side, Q4 consumer engagement with Instagram posts rose 16% year over year; engagement with video posts rose 85% vs. Q4 2015.
A dominant social brand with its 49 million+ followers, Victoria’s Secret amassed 110 million consumer actions, representing a 59% increase compared with the same period last year, Nuta says.
