BrandTotal Presents: The Top Performers Across Social Media
By: Rebecca Willis
Tags: Social Media Marketing, Social Media, Social

BrandTotal’s Top Charts include three categories: Top 10 Most Engaging Ads, Top 10 Most Loved Ads, and Top 10 Spenders. “Most Engaging” is measured by reactions and comments. “Most Loved” uses BrandTotal’s sentiment analysis to see which ads had the most positive emotions around them. The “Top Spenders’’ list shows which ads had the highest spend behind them for the period.

BrandTotal’s competitive social advertising platform gives a unique view into what brands in any industry are doing on social media, which can be compared to a set of competitors or other brands of interest. Brands can benchmark themselves against others and assess consumer sentiment around different strategies, zero in on which tactics are driving share of voice, and discover what themes and trends are emerging. Perhaps most importantly, all of this can be seen in BrandTotal on both public posts as well as highly targeted, otherwise-invisible “dark” ads brands are running, which often form the majority of brand campaigns. This gives the most complete picture of a brand’s performance, its competitors’ strategies, and a clear and actionable path to success.

This post only includes the top 3 ads in each category. If you’d like to access BrandTotal’s top 10 lists in all categories, see the full report here.

Top 3 Out of The Top 10 Most Engaging Ads

#1: The Fast Saga (Facebook — Dark), 1,041,489 engagements

#2: DaddyYankee (Facebook — Dark), 804,443 engagements

#3: Netflix (Instagram — Public), 727,606 engagements

Top 3 Out of The 10 Most Loved Ads

#1: Gucci

#2: Netflix

#3: Netflix (again!)

Top 3 Out Of The Top 10 Spenders

#1: Grammarly (Total 643m views)

#2: Think With Google — APAC Year In Search 2020 Report: Moments of Need (Total 4.3m views)

#3: Every City Katy :15 | Uber Eats — Wayne’s World (Total 28.6m views)

Deep Dive: The Top 10 Lists

Top 10 Most Engaging

Content is king! Across the Top 10, it’s all about content, content, content. From the launch of The Fast & The Furious’ new movie, to Amazon Prime Video and even Red Bull UK, this shows that the old way of “pushing” a message is out for good — while attracting users with content they’re interested in is totally in.

Rounding out the list is Louis Vuitton’s genius move to bring in KPop sensations BTS as brand ambassadors. The engagement around this group is so huge that not only does the band itself make it into the Top 10, but the members individually appear too!

The two most engaging posts were both dark video posts on Facebook. The other videos on this list were Amazon Prime Video, and Red Bull UK. The rest were static images on Instagram and Twitter, showing there is still a huge place for non-video content.

Top 10 Most Loved

Again, we’re talking content. Netflix hits this list four times out of ten, fashion brands Gucci and Puma make appearances, and Microsoft and Samsung show that even electronics consumer brands can generate love if they do things properly. The Galaxy ad in particular has an authentic feel that generates a resonance with the brand.

Then there’s some smart trend-based marketing from The Wall Street Journal. We’ve already noted the insane engagement around KPop. The WSJ jumps on this trend to present a behind-the-scenes of sorts, showing how KPop has reinvented itself for virtual concerts. By boxing smart, they’re the only news outlet on this list.

Gucci’s James Corden/Harry Styles video stands out on this list for a number of reasons. It seems like a regular James Corden spot, but it cleverly weaves humor and branding into two minutes of awkward hilarity. Top marks to Gucci for originality, using two “beloved” characters, and creating an ad whose engagement numbers demonstrate its success.

Top 10 Spenders

The big story here is Grammarly. By using targeted ads, Grammarly have notched up impressive numbers in terms of reach, with their videos playing hundreds of millions of times. In fact, the chances are you’ve seen a Grammarly ad at some point. It’s no surprise the company is valued at over a billion dollars.

Ads in this category were short. Most were around 15 seconds, some stretched to 30 seconds and almost none played for over a minute. Given these time constraints, all of these ads were effective at conveying their message succinctly and powerfully, with the right balance of audio, video, information and a value proposition.

Fascinatingly, gaming made it onto this list twice. RAID Shadow Legends and Capital One’s Shopping slot were both gaming-focused, showing how important this sector is and how quickly it’s growing.

All of these observations, insights and critical lessons are only available if you’re using the BrandTotal platform. Want to read the full Top Chart Report from BrandTotal? Access it here.