You’d have a decent start on a nestegg if you had a dollar for every time you’d heard a presenter at a social media conference say something like, “With social media, a picture is worth a lot more than a thousand words.”
No doubt, imagery and video are pushing aside words rapidly on social media as the communications device of choice at the moment.
As you know, video in particular is hot. As our regular reports from data partner Shareablee demonstrate, likes, comments and re-tweets and shares of video are powering the growth of consumer engagement with social content posted by B2B and B2C brands as well as nonprofit organizations (PRN, January 23, 2018).
The table below, compiled by Brandwatch, shows how often on average during a month unique images of brand logos appear in Instagram and Twitter posts.
Is McDonald’s a surprise at the number one slot? Certainly the rising phenomenon of people snapping pictures of their food should make it less so. The chart’s figures include both brand-sanctioned imagery and snaps that enthusiasts (and perhaps critics) post socially.
Interestingly the food and beverage sector is just the fourth-most photographed industry, at least where Instagram and Twitter are concerned, Brandwatch says. The top industry is sports, with 381,600 images per brand per month, followed in the distance by technology (28,800) and retail (28,500).
The food and beverage sector (11,700) is next, but is a distant fourth. Then it’s aviation (9920) and next is fashion (7041).
The importance of athletes as well as selfies on social might explain the strong showing of Nike and Adidas.
A Few Surprises
Puma seems a bit of a surprise, though, as does the relatively low ranking of Apple. (It would be interesting to find out how many of the images counted for the rankings in this table were taken using Apple products.)
And it seems surprising that there is no fashion brand on this list. Emirates seems a quiet surprise on this list, too.
Another thing to think about is how all this would change if videos were included along with still images.
In terms of engagement, the brands with the highest percentage of mentions by influencers (10,000+ followers) on Twitter are: McDonald’s (12%), Disney (11.9%), Coca-Cola (11.5%), Vodafone (11.1%) and Nike (10%).
