Where 6M Pieces Of Content Got Attention
Content will once again this year become a focus for marketers, but perhaps not the way you might expect.
While this year many marketers will create and test content with the assistance of generative artificial intelligence (GAI), Neil Patel, NP Digital founder, does something a little out of the ordinary to test his posts, which I’ll explain at the end of this article.
Based on Patel’s intriguing strategy, analysts at NP Digital wanted to analyze social platforms to determine which content gets the most attention on which platform.
Analysts looked at six social networks — Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and X — analyzing 6,302,491 pieces of content to see what performed best for content posted during the past 30 days.
Attention spans matter when it comes to video content. And while YouTube led in the way it changed the consumption of content, TikTok has picked up the ball and run with it. The average TikTok user in 2022 spent about 95 minutes daily on the platform consuming short-form video.
That data is about two years old, but short-form videos — which remain highly desirable — generated 31.38% of the engagement followed by long-form videos, which generated 15.51% of the engagement.
Interviews, podcasts and expert talks lagged far behind, capturing 13.84% of the engagement. Live video captured 12.37%, while memes took 10.31%, user-generated content took 10.12%, and other came in at 6.47%.
Songs are crucial for a TikTok video’s popularity, although this is something NP Digital did not analyze. A study of sounds conducted by Influencer Marketing Hub revealed that 90% of TikTok users say sound is the key element of the TikTok experience.
NP Digital also analyzed text-based content to see which type gets the most attention. How-to text content attracted 38.53%, followed by listicles at 32.71%, current events at 7.49%, research and reports at 5.02%, interviews at 3.97%, stories at 2.38%, and other at 9.90%.
The social networks where user-generated content get the most attention include Instagram at 28.19%, followed by YouTube at 27.04%, TikTok at 23.94%, Facebook at 9.85% and LinkedIn at 8.59%.
What does Patel do? He uses the social site X to test his posts. He initially posts all his content on X before posting on other platforms like TikTok, YouTube and others.
Patel takes the descriptive text word for word from X and uses it for the other platforms like LinkedIn, along with the video version. He says that even with organic reach declining on most social networks, marketers can still get more engagement.
His tests on Twitter have attracted the attention of Elon Musk, who recently tweeted about NP Digital last week after Patel recognized that X generated the highest return on ad spend, which is another story.
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