REPORT

The Brand Follower Report

What can PR, content, and inEuencer managers learn by
studying the things that make their brand's
following unique?

It’s easy to lump fans of certain things together. Car

lovers, techies – they’re all pretty similar, right?

That was a hypothesis we wanted to test with some

analysis into the followings of 12 major brands,
spanning four huge industries.

Are all fast food fans the same, or could brand afJliation tell us something about their
characteristics? If so, what could that brand learn about their audience that could help
them differentiate themselves and make marketing decisions?

In total we studied the Tweets and following patterns of more than 13 million Twitter
authors across the followings of brands like Apple, Tesla, Wendy’s, and Nike to see what
makes each of their audiences unique.

We break up our analysis into takeaways for content, inEuencer, and PR managers
working in the sports apparel, automotive, fast food, and consumer tech industries.

Essentially, we look to answer the following questions:

Broadly – How is your following unique? How does your audience

compare to other brands in your industry?

For content managers – What kind of content does your audience share?

For in:uencer managers – What kind of inEuencers does your audience

really engage with?

For PR managers – What kind of causes does your audience care about?
What kind of media outlets does your audience share content from?
For any notes on how we conducted our research, please check out the methodology.

Sports apparel

Industry overview
We studied the followings of Nike, adidas, and Under Armour to see what made each of
them unique.

To begin with, we wanted to see how followings cross over between the brands.
 Sports apparel brand follower cross-overs

Represents the size of each brand's active following and how they cross over with each other

The biggest afJnity between follower groups is between adidas and Nike with an
incredible 67% of adidas followers also following Nike.

Meanwhile, while UnderArmour has a smaller following, it seems a little more

independent of the others – it’s carved out its own niche.

Insights for content managers

When we looked at the social media site links being shared most on Twitter by followers
of Nike, adidas and Under Armour, we found that:
 • Instagram, LinkedIn and Vine were shared disproportionately more by Nike
followers

• Facebook and Pinterest were shared disproportionately more by adidas followers

• Tiktok and Reddit were shared disproportionately more by Under Armour

followers

Looking at this information, content managers can understand a little more about the
platforms they might be under-using.

Insights for in:uencer managers

Looking at the top 100 most inEuential accounts inEuencing the followers of Nike,
adidas, and Under Armour followers, we found that:

• Nike followers were most receptive to entertainment stars

• adidas followers were more likely than Nike or UnderArmour followers to be

inEuenced by internet personalities like @pewdiepie and @JeffreeStar

• Under Armour had the most politicians and sports stars amongst their most
inEuential 100 accounts

You can take this one of two ways – either engage more with the inEuencers your
audience are most receptive to, or engage more with inEuencers that reach people
outside of your audience in order to broaden your reach.

Insights for PR managers

Here we take a look at the kinds of news sites audiences share from as well as the
issues they care about. This can be helpful for brands planning to take a stance on a
particular issue – will it go down well with your audience to align with a particular ‘side’?

Looking at the causes and news types our sports apparel follower sets shared stories
about, we found that:
 • Nike followers are most likely of the three brands to share from liberal news sites

• Under Armour followers were more likely than adidas or Nike followers to share
news from conservative sites, although most of their shares were for liberal sites

• When it comes to politically charged issues, all three brands’ followers tweeted
most about women’s and minority rights, although Under Armour followers were
more likely than adidas or Nike followers to Tweet about the environment or
animal rights

One good example here is Nike’s following tweeting most about minority rights as well
as sharing most from liberal news sites. This sets them up as the most likely of the
three to successfully align with an issue that Jts with this, which is exactly what they did
with their famous Colin Kapaernick commercial.
Automotive

Industry overview
We studied the followings of Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Jeep to see what made each of
them unique.

Automotive brand follower cross-overs

Represents the size of each brand's active following and how they cross over with each other

Looking at crossovers between followings, Jeep and Mercedes-Benz have the largest
connection, while Tesla has comparatively little crossover with the two brands.

Only a tiny fraction of all their followers follow all three accounts – much smaller than
we saw in sports apparel above. This might suggest that car brands are a little better at
fostering loyalty within their customer groups than other industries, with consumers
following one brand instead of following a selection (although this is obviously a small
scale study).

Insights for content managers

When we looked at the social media site links being shared most on Twitter by followers
of Tesla, Mercedes-Benz, and Jeep, we found that:

• Tumblr, Reddit and Tiktok were shared disproportionately more by Tesla followers

• Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn were shared disproportionately more by

Mercedes-Benz followers

• Vine, Swarmapp and Pinterest links were shared disproportionately more by Jeep
followers

Looking at this information, content managers can understand a little more about the
platforms they might be under-using.
If you’re a content manager looking for a new format, this is a great way to see what
your audience might engage with most. While Mercedes-Benz followers seem pretty
enamored with the more traditional sites, Jeep and Tesla followers seem open to new
and different platforms that might extend beyond a content marketer’s usual format.

Insights for in:uencer managers

Looking at the top 100 most inEuential accounts inEuencing followers of Tesla,
Mercedes-Benz and Jeep followers, we found that:

• Tesla followers were most likely to be inEuenced by journalists and politicians

• Mercedes-Benz followers were inEuenced more than the other brands by

entertainers, sports stars, and professionals (e.g. business people, like Elon
Musk)
 • Jeep followers had the most internet personalities in their top 100 inEuencers.

You can take these insights one of two ways – either engage more with the inEuencers
your audience are most receptive to, or engage more with inEuencers that reach people
outside of your audience in order to broaden your reach.

Insights for PR managers

Looking at the causes and news types our automotive follower sets shared stories
about, we found that:

• Tesla followers were most likely to share news from liberal news sites

• Jeep followers shared the highest % of news from conservative news sites,
although most of their shares were from liberal sites.

• Tesla followers were more likely to Tweet about minority/women’s rights, animal
rights and the environment than Mercedes or Jeep followers

Tesla followers are deJnitely the most likely to get involved in politically charged issues,
which makes some sense given Tesla’s green goals. That said, perhaps the company
could be taking a more prominent stand on the big issues of the day. It seems like their
audience would be open to it.

Fast food

Industry overview
We studied the followings of McDonald’s, Burger King, and Wendy’s to see what made
each of them unique.
 Fast food brand follower cross-overs

Represents the size of each brand's active following and how they cross over with each other

The biggest afJnity between the follower groups appears to be between Burger King
and Wendy’s, with 39% of Burger King’s followers also following Wendy’s.

To aim for a presence more like Wendy’s, which is behind one of the most retweeted
Tweets of all time and is widely reputed as one of the best brands on Twitter, would be a
lofty but smart goal for the more corporate fast food chains.

Insights for content managers

When we looked at the social media site links being shared most on Twitter by followers
of Wendy’s, Burger King, and McDonald’s, we found that:
 • Tumblr, Reddit, and Vine links were shared disproportionately more by Wendy’s
followers

• Facebook and Tiktok links were shared disproportionately more by BurgerKing

followers

• Instagram and Pinterest links were shared disproportionately more by

McDonald’s followers

Looking at this information, content managers can understand a little more about the
platforms they might be under-using.

McDonald’s followers seem most interested in visual formats like those on Instagram
and Pinterest, while Wendy’s followers seem more drawn to humour.

Meanwhile, Tiktok could present interesting possibilities for Burger King.

Insights for in:uencer managers

Looking at the top 100 most inEuential accounts inEuencing followers of McDonalds,
BurgerKing, and Wendy’s followers, we found that:

• McDonald’s followers were most likely to be inEuenced by politicians

• Burger King followers were most likely to be inEuenced by entertainment stars

• Wendy’s followers were most likely to be inEuenced by journalists and internet

personalities
 Breakdown of top 100 most accounts in:uencing brand followers

You can take these insights one of two ways – either engage more with the inEuencers
your audience are most receptive to, or engage more with inEuencers that reach people
outside of your audience in order to broaden your reach.

Insights for PR managers

Examining the news sources and issues the three audiences Tweet about, we found
that:

• Wendy’s followers were most likely to Tweet about politically charged issues

• McDonald’s followers were least likely of all the to Tweet about all the issues we
searched for (minority and womens’ rights, animal rights and the environment)
 • McDonald’s followers were most likely of the three to share news from
conservative news sites, while Wendy’s followers were most likely of the three to
share from liberal sites.

Of all the three sites, Wendy’s seems best placed to take a stance on a controversial
societal issue, while McDonald’s followers may be less open to it.

Consumer tech

Industry overview
We studied the followings of Samsung, Apple, and Microsoft to see what made each of
them unique.
 Consumer tech follower cross-overs

Represents the size of each brand's active following and how they cross over with each other

Samsung followers were more likely to also follow Microsoft than also follow Apple, and
the crossover between giants Microsoft and Apple is surprisingly small.

The likelihood of following all three is very small, much like in our automotive research
above.

Insights for content managers

Content managers searching for a new platform will Jnd these insights helpful.

When we looked at the social media site links being shared most on Twitter by followers
of Apple, Samsung, and Microsoft, we found that:

• Links from Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn were shared disproportionately

more by Apple followers

• Links from Reddit and TikTok were shared disproportionately more by Samsung
followers

• Links from Vine, Tumblr and Pinterest were shared disproportionately more by
Microsoft followers

Looking at this information, content managers can understand a little more about the
platforms they might be under-using.

Apple followers seem to be pretty hot on the more traditional social media sites, while
Microsoft and Samsung followers seem drawn to what might be called the more ‘niche’
sites, like TikTok and Vine.

Insights for in:uencer managers

Looking at the top 100 most inEuential accounts inEuencing followers of Samsung,
Apple and Microsoft followers, we found that:

• Apple followers were most likely to be inEuenced by internet personalities and

entertainment stars

• Samsung followers were most likely to be inEuenced by professionals (e.g. Elon

Musk) and journalists

• Microsoft followers were most likely to be inEuenced by politicians

You can take these insights one of two ways – either engage more with the inEuencers
your audience are most receptive to, or engage more with inEuencers that reach people
outside of your audience in order to broaden your reach.
Insights for PR managers
Examining the news sources and issues the three audiences Tweet about, we found
that:

• All three brands were more likely to share links from liberal news sites than
conservative sites

• Apple followers were the most likely to Tweet links from liberal news sites

• Microsoft followers were most likely of the brands to Tweet links from
conservative news sites (although most were from liberal sites)

• Samsung followers were the most engaged in societal issues like animal rights,
minority and women’s rights and the environment.

Samsung seems best placed to take a stance on one of these issues, although they
might wish to research how their audience feels about them before proceeding.
 % of brand followers tweeting about particular issues

After word
As detailed above, almost every audience is different in its own way and each brand’s
following has different preferences, make-ups and behaviors.

One of the most exciting things about the above insights is that they can be actioned
either-way. To expand on the audience you have, it might be worth reaching beyond
where they like to hang out and to work with inEuencers or sites that your competitors’
audiences prefer. Meanwhile, if you’d like to get a message out loud and clear to your
supporters, you can use research like this to Jnd out exactly where it could resonate
most.
Methodology

Industry audience overview:

For this report we used Brandwatch Audiences, which allows you to search through a
database of over 450m Twitter users. You can search by keywords in bio or recent
Tweets, interests, professions, demographics, and the followers of any Twitter account
and then create reports on the people in these audiences and what they’re talking about.

To create the industry audience overviews we found the number of people following all
the brands, two of the brands or one of the brands using Audiences. Note: Audiences
only contains Twitter users who are in the Audiences database. This database is built by
looking at the Twitter decahose, a 10% sample of all Tweets and has been tracking
since April 2015. So followers who haven’t tweeted, or tweeted very rarely, since 2015
may not be included in these insights.

Insights for content managers

To understand which social networks might be disproportionately popular with the
followers of each brand we use Brandwatch Audiences to study all the Tweets by
followers over a period of 30 days to see how often these sites have been linked to
(including shortened urls).

Audiences gives a ‘relevance score’ out of 100 for sites linked to by studying the volume
of links shared by members of the audience and comparing this to all Twitter users. A
higher score indicates a higher percentage of these people are sharing links compared
to the average.

Insights for in:uencer managers

For each brand following we looked at Tweets over a 30 day period and identiJed the
top 100 individual accounts that were most mentioned, retweeted, or replied to by that
group of people. We then categorized these inEuencers as either:
 • Internet Personalities: Bloggers, vloggers or other people primarily popular for
their social posts

• Entertainers: Well known musicians, actors, comedians etc

• Professionals: Businesspeople, lawyers, doctors etc

• Journalists

• Politicians

Insights for PR managers

We looked at how often groups of followers had shared links to top sites considered to
be more right or left leaning. We then calculated a percentage conservative vs liberal
from these two totals in order to compare the audiences.

For the political issues we calculated how many of each audience’s active users had
used a hashtag in the last three months that was connected to a particular issue. (Eg
#MeToo, #GoVegan)
 Want to try out the technology used in this
research?
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