Small and medium sized enterprises (SME) owners also use social media as a marketing tool, as 68 percent of American SME stated having a profile on social networking sites. About 37 percent of B2B marketers in North America use social media stories as part of their marketing tactics. Overall, 69 percent of marketers stated that they were planning on increasing their use of Instagram for marketing purposes in 2019 while only 51 percent of respondents stated the same about Facebook. Merely three percent of marketers worldwide had no plans to utilize Facebook for marketing, compared to 76 percent who were not interested in using Snapchat.
Due to its ubiquity and immense reach, Facebook has proven ideal for the online positioning of brands and is the most popular social media platform used by marketers worldwide. Some of the most popular Facebook fan pages feature popular artists, athletes, sports teams and other media figures. Samsung is ranked among the leading product brands with close to 160 million Facebook fans. Other popular product brands include Coca-Cola, Buzzfeed Tasty, and YouTube. Food Network Magazine is the leading magazine brand on Facebook.
In addition to Facebook, photo-oriented content and visual-driven social networks, such as Instagram, have been gaining space amongst brands. Instagram has proven especially beneficial for brands in the auto, fashion and beauty industries. Most major global auto brands have an Instagram account, the same goes for fashion and beauty brands. The most active verticals on Instagram were sports teams, fashion, and health & beauty.
Instagram is also a popular platform for brands to utilize influencers. The best-performing brand in influencer marketing in 2018 was Fashion Nova with close to 588 million U.S dollars in earned media from Instagram. The volume of sponsored content on Instagram is projected to amount to 6.12 million posts in 2020, up from an estimated 3.7 million posts in 2018. According to a 2019 survey of U.S. marketers, the leading factors determining the cooperation with influencers were the quality of content, the influencer’s target audience and the engagement rate.
