What is the ranking of social networks? Brands improve their efficiency on platforms
IAB Spain the advertising, marketing and digital communication association in Spain, has presented the XII Edition of the Observatory of Brands in Social Networks 2024, in which it has been demonstrated how brands have consolidated their communities with sustained growth each year and have improved the efficiency of their network activity.
This study, developed in collaboration with associated companies, Alkemy, Gestation and Metricool seeks to provide key data on the Spanish market, offering brands a new framework to evaluate and compare your activity on social networks against other brands and sectors as well as establishing measurement standards applicable to any social network, current or future. To do this, the activity of 206 brands, selected according to their investment volume and categorization in the sector, with data provided by adjinn.
Category and special brand
Among one of the new features of this edition is the differentiation of two scenarios in the social media ecosystem in Spain, including a special brand category for LALIGA which, thanks to the interest and sporting nature of its contents, obtains results above the general averages of the study. This is how, this year, it has been compared with the data from the last edition of the Observatory, which did not have the presence of LALIGA, and a special position has been created for this brand, which is shown as leader in the vast majority of rankings.
Social media rankings
In the last 8 years there has been a general increase in the community on brands’ social networks. From 2020 to 2021 it doubled, continuing its growth in the following years at a medium pace. Even so, 2024 is presented as the first year in which The average community decreases compared to the previous year. This is how Facebook maintains its leadership with 62% of the total share in Spain, while Instagramwhich in 2023 had doubled its participation after reaching 24% of the total, has decreased this year to 21%. For its part, X (Twitter) remains stable with 10% and YouTube has decreased slightly to 7%.
As for the average number of publications, An increase of 2% is shown in 2024, reflecting the increase in brand activity, reaching the 2,885 publications on average on all social networks of the brands in Spain.
In this framework, X (Twitter) continues to be the platform with highest number of publicationswith 61% of the total quota, although it has experienced a decrease compared to 2023 (76%). For its part, Facebook has decreased from 23% in 2023 to 11% this year, while Instagram y YouTube They remain at 8%.
Total interactions have decreased by 33% in 2024 after having a historical peak in 2024. The highest number of interactions have been shown on Instagram (68%), while Facebook has increased its share to 27%, compared to 14% last year. On the other hand, X (Twitter) and YouTube are positioned as the platforms with the least interaction, with 4% and 1% respectively.
Engagement, virality and efficiency
As to the average participationthere has been a decrease, dropping to 2.5%, compared to 3.3% the previous year. Instagram leads in terms of participation with 61%followed by YouTube, which has had a notable improvement, going from 12% to 22% in 2024.
Virality on its sidehas shown a reduction of 2%, indicating that lContents are shared less among the audience, Although Twitter remains the most viral network with a 74% share, Facebook has increased again, reaching 26% compared to 18% the previous year.
Meanwhile, efficiency has shown constant growth in each edition of the Observatory. This shows that brands are achieving better results with less effort. Instagram remains the most efficient platform with an 80% share, followed by Facebook (11%), YouTube (8%) and X with only 1%.
Twitch, Instagram, TikTok y LinkedIn
Twitch has experienced growth in its average number of followers, increasing from 15,1412 in 2023 to 80,855 in 2024. Of the 23 sectors analyzed, 13 have an active brand on this social network.
On Instagram, 71.92% of the posts are stories, 11.39% are feed images and 11% are reels, of which only 0.54% appear in the main feed. Nevertheless, The format with the greatest participation is the carousel, with an engagement of 10.15%, compared to 6.27% for the reels. The best days to publish on this network are Wednesday and Friday, changing from the previous edition, which was Monday and Thursday.
In TikTok, The average engagement is 5.75, with an average number of views of 18,173.32. On this platform, Huge accounts, which are those with more than 50,000 followersstand out with an average of 91,362 views, much more than small accounts.
On the other hand, in LinkedIn69% of the 206 brands analyzed have a profile on this network. The average number of publications in 2024 was 26, compared to 25 the previous year. In this edition, 51 brands exceed the average number of publications, compared to 38 in 2023.
Analysis by sectors
In the Observatory of Brands in Social Networks 2024 23 sectors were studied. The Sports sector stands out leading most of the rankings, driven by content related to LALIGA. The publishing sector It also stands out, with the newspaper AS in outstanding positions and a notable presence of Netflix. Thirdly, there is the IT sectorwith Google as its main representative.
«In an environment where social networks play a central role in communication and marketing, it is crucial to focus on improving the efficiency and impact of campaigns. For this reason, at IAB Spain, we launched this Observatory with the aim of helping brands to better adapt to trends, make more effective strategic decisions and maximize their presence in an increasingly competitive digital environment,” he says. Belén Acebes, Director of Operations at IAB Spain.
