Annual Social Media Report Unravels The Biggest Trends Of Brands On Instagram And TikTok

The Battenhall team is at it again. They’ve recently launched this year’s social media report and the 10th edition is looking bigger and brighter for brands scattered across Instagram and TikTok.

The report is a great way to witness how the world of social media continues to evolve as we speak and how trends keep on fluctuating with each passing day.

This year, great emphasis was placed on those social media apps that users adored and couldn’t stop themselves from posting on.

There were so many ways through which creators and brands on the app chose to reinvent themselves and cause a huge change that continues to linger today.

Looking at the posting frequency for apps like TikTok as well as the levels of engagement on the platform for various brands, it’s quite obvious to notice a clear transition from posts that are super polished to those that depict that real feeling with Gen Z in control.

If we had to pick one thing that unites all of these brands as one, it would be engagement. Content that is labeled as successful is one that’s entertaining. It could be videos, images, or written words too. And this particular study took nearly 7,500 types of content from social media into consideration.

For TikTok, it was the likes of Entertainment, Sports, and Fashion that had users in a whirlwind. They just couldn’t get over it with posts flooding the apps left and right. Next up, the world of Corporate, Gaming, and Food and Drink took center stage, with travel ranking nearby too. The tailenders including the likes of tech and transport just barely made it through the list for leading categories.


Moving on to which types of content reigned supreme on the Instagram app, the findings definitely varied across the board depending on the mode of content published like pictures, video, and carousel.

Since Instagram is now mostly pictures and videos, there was a nice blend to appreciate here. People adore their food and drink on the app and that’s why it took the lead with 56% of posts getting published. This was followed by transport at 53% and finance at 39%. Sports and fashion came in third with 29% of pictures while Tourism lagged behind at 23%. It was very interesting to see the likes of entertainment posts get only 17% of coverage through pictures on the app.

But when looking at videos, the statistics were completely different. The stats for tech that scored just 6% for picture posts on the app had the greatest posts for video content, coming in at a staggering 72%. This was closely followed by Tourism at 71% and B2B at 68%. Gaming and entertainment took the next few spots at 63% and 61% respectively.

Let’s not forget to mention how the tables have really turned on the app when looking at last year. Videos made up just 32% of content formats last year and now, it’s the most popular format for publishing in 2022, making up 56% of all posts.

So if we had to summarize the main findings from this social media report, we would have to say the use of videos has surged to an all-new high but still pictures aren’t disappearing just yet. They still make up 30% of posts on apps like Instagram.

Next, timing is crucial. TikTok content of more than 30 seconds gets more engagement and we must point out the significance of hashtags here too as they do amazing at getting reach.

Post captions that are short also assist with engagement as proven by TikTok and Instagram posts with less than 100 characters. Also, every app is different. Users log into TikTok for recommendations so you’ll see themes like B2B, tourism, finance, and entertainment doing better here than Instagram.

Last but not least, Carousels have a greater chance for success on Instagram. Users adore swiping and these end up getting the most likes across the board than others. You might want to take that into consideration with your future posts.

Remember, engagement in the world of social media is literally everything. And it's no huge surprise that TikTok beat out Instagram when stats were broken up in terms of engagement received versus the number of followers. Clearly, there is a massive surge in short-form video content and that's why more and more apps are making sure that content is promoted the most.



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