When a holiday’s biggest sporting event is literally a hot dog eating contest, that’s a pretty clear indication of how important food is to celebrating July Fourth. The National Retail Federation estimated $7.7 billion would be spent on food items around Independence Day this year. For CPG Food and Beverage brands, the holiday is an especially opportune time to connect with the social media audience. 

So which brands and tactics were most successful in their July Fourth related messaging? We looked at the social media analytics to identify the biggest winners around alcoholic beverages, non alcoholic beverages, and CPG Food.   

Non Alcoholic Beverage Winners 

Looking at the non-alcoholic beverage brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: Non alcoholic beverage brands averaged 475 engagements for the 90 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022. 

Preferred Format: Gallery posts stood out by averaging 1,959 engagements. Single Image posts by non alcoholic beverage brands with Fourth of July messaging averaged 494 engagements, while video posts averaged 129 engagements. 

Best Performing Channel: Instagram posts averaged 959 engagements. By comparison, Facebook posts averaged 323 engagements, TikTok posts averaged 90 engagements, and Twitter posts averaged 26 engagements. 

Timing Is Everything: July Fourth related post published by Non alcoholic beverages on July 1 performed the best, averaging 1,137 engagements. By comparison, their July Fourth related posts shared during the actual holiday only averaged 368 engagements. 

Most Noteworthy Post: Liquid Death got 11,289 engagements on an Instagram post sharing the Dehydration Detector 9000, essentially a picture of pee color for people to reference so they understand how dehydrated they are. This innovative approach, beat out an Instagram post by CELSIUS Energy Drink about sparklers, to become the most engaged Fourth of July related social post by a non alcoholic beverage brand.  

Alcoholic Beverage Winners 

Looking at the alcoholic beverage brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: Alcoholic beverage brands averaged 270 engagements for the 181 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022. 

Preferred Format: For Alcohol brands single images were most effective, with those July Fourth themed posts averaging 320 engagements. Gallery posts averaged 226 engagements with video posts averaging 131 engagements. Text posts averaged 292 engagements, with that primarily due to a Bug Light Facebook post about the sound of opening up the first beer. 

Best Performing Channel: Alcohol brands averaged 376 engagements on Facebook for their July Fourth related posts. That outperformed Instagram, where the brands averaged 223 engagements and Twitter where their holiday posts averaged 131 engagements. 

Timing Is Everything: Alcohol brands averaged 2,266 engagements for the July Fourth posts they share on June 29. The holiday themed posts they shared on July Fourth only averaged 131 engagements.  

Most Noteworthy Post: Evan Williams Bourbon had 14,581 engagements on a Facebook post promoting their American Made Heroes Foundation and wishing veterans a happy fourth of July. The American Made Heroes Foundation awards up to $75,000 in grant funding to qualified organizations that serve U.S. military veterans. This was the most popular Fourth of July post by an alcohol brand around the holiday this year.  

​​

CPG Food Winners 

Looking at the CPG Food brands averaging the most engagements on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok for their posts mentioning either July Fourth or July 4th between June 28 – July 4, 2022. 

By The Numbers: CPG Food brands averaged 425 engagements for the 425 Fourth of July related social media posts they shared between June 28- July 4, 2022 

Preferred Format: CPG Food brands averaged 643 engagements for their July Fourth related Gallery posts. In comparison, CPG Food brands averaged 314 engagements on their Video posts, averaged 189 engagements on their single image posts, and averaged 81 engagements on their Text posts. 

Best Performing Channel: TikTok was the most effective channel for CPG Food brands as they averaged 659 engagements for their July Fourth related posts there. The brands averaged 384 engagements on Instagram, 205 engagements on Facebook, 169 engagements on YouTube, and 48 engagements on Twitter. 

Timing Is Everything: For CPG Food brands, the most effective day to share their July Fourth related posts was July 1, when they averaged 518 engagements. The holiday posts they shared on July Fourth only averaged 174 engagements.  

Most Noteworthy Post: The top performing July Fourth related CPG Food post came from a product that’s not actually food. Dubble Bubble Bubble Gum got 20,329 engagements for a Facebook post where their patriotic eagle wished everyone a happy 4th. 

Conclusion 

When looking at the top performing Food and Beverage posts around July Fourth, a couple of different templates emerged. Top posts were either clever, such as Liquid Death’s Dehydration Detector 9000 concept or Oreo sharing a gallery of firework themed Oreo creations, or patriotic, such as  Evan Williams Bourbon saluting veterans or Double Bubble and their bald eagle.  Additionally, when it came to timing, July Fourth posts shared 3-5 days ahead of the actual holiday performed the best. 

Holiday campaigns are challenging for brands because there’s a very limited amount of time the messaging is relevant, making in window optimization near impossible. By using a social media analytics solution to understand what worked for holiday posts across an entire cohort of competitors, brands have a much clearer understanding of the proper approach to take around the next holiday.  

 Want more holiday related social media insights? Request a ListenFirst demo today! 

Consumer behaviors are evolving on social media. Especially since the start of the pandemic, as in person interaction has become less frequent. Many people are no longer “lurking” on social media, but are actually engaging.

How does this impact your method of measurement?

Surface-level metrics like followers and engagements are not as telling as they once were. To measure the effectiveness of your social media strategy today, you must take a more sophisticated approach.

Download our report to learn how to measure social media’s impact on consumer buzz, brand awareness, competitive rankings, and customer conversions.

For brands, knowing video is important for your social media strategy is not enough. Certain social media platforms are becoming more central to brand marketing as video becomes more popular, while other social platforms become less of a focus for brands.  

Additionally, as the audience embraces video, the social media metrics that marketers should be focusing on needs to change as well.

This report takes a look at several key industries on social media including Fashion, Publishing, Food & Beverage, Top Advertisers, and Home Furnishings, to determine the behavioral shift of media consumption by the public on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube.

In this report we outline exactly how video has changed audience behavior, why that’s impacting which social media metrics you need to focus on, and what brand priorities should be going forward.

Take Your Social Media Marketing To The Next Level

Data without context is useless. It’s why benchmarks are so critical when it comes to measuring the success of social media campaigns.

This report breaks down everything you need to know about benchmarking. We even go beyond the benchmarking basics and show how you can leverage more advanced metrics to gain insights needed to truly optimize your team’s efforts.

How does your brand measure up against the industry benchmarks?

Is there more CPC value on Twitter? Are competitors having more success with video content on Facebook or Instagram? Is the loss of organic reach on Facebook more or less than what the rest of the industry is experiencing? How often is the audience Saving posts on Instagram?

The ListenFirst Industry Benchmarks Report for Consumer Brands answers all these questions and more, arming your team with the competitive insights necessary to make sure your social media content is being seen by the widest, most relevant audience.

Using exclusive, anonymized and authorized data from the large network of consumer brands that partner with ListenFirst, this report is an invaluable cheat sheet, spelling out exactly how your brand performance on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter measures up against the rest of the industry, both around organic and paid.

Starting in September 2021, ListenFirst users will have access to a new platform experience. Notable features now available in the new ListenFirst experience include the ability to:

• quickly find the data you need
• build configurable dashboards
• uncover key takeaways automatically
• create brand roll-ups on the fly
• dive into the analytics and share meaningful visuals quickly

We breakdown our most exciting enhancements below.

Configurable Dashboards

When you first log in to your ListenFirst account, you’ll get a quick glimpse at the performance metrics most important to you. Configurable Dashboards make this all possible. Our new dashboard feature allows customers to create specific combinations of ListenFirst data to match their team’s unique use cases and workflows. 

It’s easy to add an analysis tile to your favorite dashboard, or to multiple dashboards. It’s your choice. From there you have easy-to-understand, beautiful reports to share with other ListenFirst users.

You’re in Control with Instant Insights

Tired of burning precious hours attempting the work of a trained data analyst? Instant Insights, is a new analytics feature that quickly shows how brands perform across social media. It’s all in a single view! 

Leveraging years of intelligence gathered from working with the largest brands in the world, Instant Insights utilizes machine learning to deliver analysis like no other. Users can benchmark performance and uncover valuable takeaways in natural language. Even configure multiple brands and content filters on the fly. 

A Modern and User-Friendly Design

We worked hand-in-hand with ListenFirst customers to ensure the new interface would provide easy access to the data needed most. This resulted in a more streamlined workflow paired with modern design. Save time with more intuitive navigation, clean data visuals and more ways to share key metrics and insightful takeaways with others.

Experience the Enhancements for Yourself

Throughout the month of September, users will be given the opportunity to switch between the new and legacy UI. So, the next time you log into your ListenFirst account, look for the toggle button at the top right.

Don’t be shy. Dive into the upgraded experience for more flexibility, faster insights and access to powerful dashboards. New feature walk-thrus will be available as you explore the platform, but for a deeper understanding of the new workflows, check out the knowledge base dedicated to the Platform Redesign found in the Help Center.