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Week 2 Part B- Business Research

Big Duck
https://bigduck.com
Big Duck is a worker-owned cooperative that develops nonprofit brands and campaigns (similar to what my agency does). Like us, they are a national business with something between 20-40 employees (fairly small).
Facebook: 3,400 followers. last post 8/24
Twitter: 10.9k followers, last tweet 8/25
They have links to their social in their website footer.

I am interested in Big Duck because they are a competitor of my company and I'm curious about what they're doing with social. In general, it looks like they try to post often on social media, but they don't have a lot of engagement with people. They seem to use Facebook and Twitter most, and primarily to write informational blogs for other nonprofit fundraisers.

Longreads
Longreads showcases longform journalism (articles over 1,500 words) and is a small company with around 15 employees. I believe their reach is international.
Twitter: 296k followers, last tweet 9/1
Facebook: 127k followers, last post 8/25 
Instagram: 8k followers, last post 8/25
They have links to their social in their website footer, and they seem to post every couple of days.

I'm interested in Longreads because I do social media for a similar site called The Sunday Long Read. I think Twitter is their most popular form of social media, which makes sense because people just want links to their articles. They have a huge following but don't get a ton of likes. I think people probably just click on the articles and don't engage much.

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals® 
https://www.aspca.org
The ASPCA was the first humane society to be established in North America and is now one of the largest in the world. The company itself is pretty large, with approximately 1,000 employees.
Facebook: 1.6 million followers, last post 8/1
Twitter: 508k followers, last post 9/1
YouTube: 40k subscribers, last post a month ago 
Instagram: 470k followers, last post 8/24
TikTok: 198k followers, last post 8/24 
They have links to their social media in their website footer.

I am interested in their social media because we have some similar animal welfare clients (through my full-time job), and I think we can learn from them. They seem to post regularly (once a day), and they post on YouTube every couple of months.

Whole Whale
https://www.wholewhale.com
Whole Whale is another digital agency (and also based in NYC like Big Duck) that helps nonprofits and social impact companies make the best use of their website, analytics, digital content, advertising, social media, etc. Like my company and Big Duck, they are a fairly small national company (around 30 employees).
Facebook: 2k followers, last post 8/12 post 
Twitter: 4.9k followers, last post 8/12 
IG: 1.28k followers, same schedule as FB and Twitter, last post 8/12
LinkedIn: 1.5k followers, last post 8/12
YouTube: 7k followers, same posting schedule
TikTok: 35 followers. 
They have links to their social in their website footer.

They have all the social media, but I don't think it gets a lot of traffic. They basically post all the same content on each platform, and they're mostly advertising their webinars. I don't see a lot of interaction with their subscribers or followers. They post once a month on LinkedIn, and there aren't too many posts or engagement on TikTok.

Cup of Jo
https://cupofjo.com
Cup of Jo is a daily women’s lifestyle site that covers style, culture, food, travel, relationships and parenting. It is based in the US but it spans the entire world. Their staff is small though (I think around 6 full-time employees).
Facebook: 69k followers, last post 8/31 
Twitter: 60k followers, last post 8/31 
Pinterest: 289k followers, last post 8/31
IG: 266k followers, last post 8/31
They have links to their social in their website footer.

I love Cup of Jo. I read this blog a couple times a week and I follow them on IG. I think Instagram is their most popular platform, maybe because of their demographic (AKA women like me). She is a great writer and does a wonderful job of posting a balance of fun things and promotional things. Even the promotional ones are done super well. They're very transparent and fit with their brand/are things people want to read. Her posts feel the most genuine to me of all the ones I looked at. She (or maybe her team members) post regularly and get lots of likes on things like family photos or funny articles. Their Instagram gets a great deal of engagement.

SUMMARY
I was expecting to see more engagement overall with all of these companies/organizations. But it seemed like a lot of them just put up posts to put up posts--and with the same content across all platforms. Maybe I need to look at more companies geared to younger people! The only content I found actually personally engaging across all of these companies and their platforms was Cup of Jo on Instagram because it's short and entertaining/in the same voice as her blog.

The ASPCA has probably the largest following overall, and the most engagement (especially when they're telling stories about the individual pets, which is something we find with our clients as well). The cultivation is usually more positively received than the fundraising asks (naturally). 

I think that, next, I need to look at some companies that are doing more actual selling of products because they probably spend more money on social ads and promoted posts. But the exercise was also a little comforting because I thought maybe we weren't doing enough social for The Sunday Long Read or getting enough likes/retweets, and now I feel like we are in line with the "competition."

I'd also like to explore TikTok in greater depth, especially since some of my clients have been asking us to produce videos for them lately.

Comments

  1. Pablo CorreaSeptember 9, 2022 at 2:35 PM

    The different types of businesses you chose to look at are interesting. I liked that you chose different businesses because it really shows us what to do when using social media and what to avoid doing. It also helps us see how different industries use social media to their advantage. Looking at businesses that are similar to competitors also helps us become better than them and allows us to learn from their mistakes.

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