Companies are attracting an increasing number of consumers on Twitter, with brands recording an average of 43% increase in followers last year, according to a recent report from ExactTarget Marketing Cloud.
Four industries in particular significantly increased followers in 2013: technology and manufacturing (up 93%), retail and e-commerce (75%), CPG (55%), and financial services (55%).
Below, key findings from the report, which was based on data from 3.6 million tweets (paid and organic) sent in 2013 by companies in 15 industries.
Engagement Rates by Industry
- Consumers across all the examined industries gravitate toward tweets that include photos.
- Tweets containing photos receive 3.3 replies on average, compared with 1.7 replies on average for non-photo tweets.
- On average, nine consumers retweet a photo tweet compared with five for a non-photo tweet.
- Retail and e-commerce companies sent the most tweets (303K) in 2013 of any brands examined.
- Media and entertainment companies received the most replies on average (7.7) and retweets (23.6).
Engagement by Day and Time
- Tweets sent by brands on Sundays get most retweets and replies, on average, but companies tweet the least on this day, the analysis found.
- During the workweek, companies tweet the least on Mondays and increase volume as the week goes on.
- The highest volume of tweets occurred last year between 3 PM and 6 PM CST.
- The highest engagement rates occurred between 9 PM and 12 AM CST (4.9 replies and 27.3 retweets, on average).
About the research: The report was based on data from 3.6 million tweets (paid and organic) sent in 2013 by companies in 15 industries.
