WASHINGTON, D.C. — February 11, 2016 TrackMaven, a social and content marketing analytics software company, released today a comprehensive analysis of content marketing trends over a 12 month period. The report surfaces insights from digital marketing activity across 2015 from 22,957 brands across all major B2B, B2C and nonprofit industries. Collectively, this analysis includes 50 million pieces of content across six key marketing channels — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and blogs — with a combined total of 75.7 billion interactions.
The findings point to a paradigm shift in digital marketing efficacy as social networks fight to better monetize their platforms, mobile content consumption continues to explode, and the bar for richer in-platform content rises. The main takeaways:
- Despite the fact that average engagement continues to fall, brands have amplified content production and publishing. From its highest to lowest points, the output of content per brand increased by 35% per channel, while content engagement decrease by 17% overall. (Graph 1)
- Content overload is quantifiable. When content output spiked in October 2015, engagement levels took the sharpest downturn. There is a ceiling to how much content can be consumed, liked, and shared. Brands and social networks alike are competing now more than ever for their share of engagement. (Graph 1)
- Engagement dropped across all major social networks, but plummeted most on Pinterest, 49% decrease across 2015. Twitter is the notable exception, where engagement rose slightly across 2015. (Graph 5)
- Despite complaints about organic reach, Facebook’s average engagement ratio for brands is three times that of Twitter. Since our analysis includes both paid and organic content, this result could point to Facebook’s successful monetization of its network, an area where Twitter continues to flounder. (Graph 5)
- Beware the content saturation moment on Pinterest. Across 2015, Pinterest is the channel with the greatest drop in average engagement ratio among the major social networks. In fact, the average brand engagement ratio on Pinterest cut nearly in half in 2015, dropping 49%. (Graph 5)
- Brand engagement on LinkedIn remains steady, with an end of year uptick. LinkedIn’s average engagement ratio is the most consistent of the major networks, hovering between 22.3 interactions per post per 1,000 followers across 2015. LinkedIn is also the lowest volume network. Brands post between 10.2 to 13.7 times per month on LinkedIn on average, or roughly once every two to three days. (Graph 5)
- Across 2015, the output of content per brand per channel increased on every major social network. Content output per brand increased most on Twitter and Facebook, 60% and 31% year-over-year respectively. (Graph 7)
- Blogging remains an effective core competency for brands. The average monthly blogging frequency for brands decreased by 16% across 2015, but social sharing on blogs held steady with notable seasonal spikes throughout the year. (Graph 8)
Find a full copy of the report here.
About TrackMaven: Content and social marketers from hundreds of the world’s best brands use TrackMaven’s digital marketing analytics platform. TrackMaven monitors marketing activities across 15 different online channels to help marketers understand which content drives engagement and conversion. This lets them understand the impact of their digital marketing efforts and deliver the right content on the right channels at the right time and place. The TrackMaven platform analyzes more than 1 million pieces of digital marketing content every day.
Founded in 2012, the company is headquartered in Washington, D.C. To learn more, visit https://trackmavens.com or follow us on Twitter @TrackMaven.