2019 Social Media Stats: Twitter

Twitter is a distant third behind Instagram and Facebook. Over 90% of brands promote themselves on Instagram, and 80% on Facebook. But only 18% of the brands in our Worldwide Directory have a presence on Twitter. Nevertheless, we believe Twitter has great potential for savvy brands.

Changes: 2018 to 2019

As we did for Instagram and Facebook, we posted a league table of the top brands to our own Instagram back in 2018. The same caveat applies: these were from the limited sample of 140 we tracked back then.

This table shows the percent change in the number of followers for the original 20 brands over the past 14 months:

Booch Organic leads this group with a 45% increase in Twitter followers. They only saw a 14% increase in the number of their followers on Instagram, and a 9% rise for Facebook. Health-Ade matched the 40% increase they enjoyed on Facebook, while only adding 25% more followers on Instagram.

Seven brands saw declines in the number of followers. We were unable to find an account for Rise Kombucha — we assume they’ve closed their Twitter account (while boosting Instagram followers by 78%).

Reviewing the change in the volume of Tweets

There’s no correlation between the number of tweets and the increase in the number of followers. Booch Organic attracted over 1,300 additional followers with just three tweets a week. Whereas Tonica posted ten times as many tweets while attracting far fewer followers.

The bottom four accounts did not update Twitter in the past 14 months. Upstart Kombucha pruned the number of tweets.

2019 Leader Board

The extensive research that led to the Worldwide Directory has resulted in a much more thorough inventory of brands than was available back in October 2018.

This table shows the 20 leading kombucha companies. As with the Instagram table, we’ve removed companies that make products in addition to ‘booch that attract followers.

It’s immediately apparent how few followers even the leading brands have on Twitter when compared to Facebook and Instagram. Indeed, GTs have just 11% of the followers they attract on Facebook and just 7% of the number who follow them on Instagram.

But wait! Where else but Twitter could a brand engage in a conversation like the one GTs just had with this customer:

NodeXL Geeking out on Twitter

Believe it or not, the analysis we’ve done so far only scratches the surface of what’s possible with Twitter. Facebook and Instagram (owned by Facebook) which — following a series of unfortunate events — severely restricted access to their data. However, Twitter can be mined to uncover a fascinating network of relationships between brands and their customers.

The good folks at the Social Media Research Foundation have given us access to a powerful tool called NodeXL. This aggregates tweets and performs graphical and tabular analysis of vast amounts of data in a (relatively) easy to understand and vibrant format.

This report analyses 5,979 tweets among the 269 brands with Twitter accounts in our Worldwide Directory. The graph they’ve generated looks like this:

While the patterns in this graph might look confusing at first glance, it comprises separate clusters formed by consumers discussing a brand. Small red circles represent tweets that don’t reference anyone else — such as when a brand might tweet about a new flavor.

The full report allows brands to identify key influencers and, indirectly, reach those who are passionate about kombucha (by following, and even re-tweeting, their content).

There’s a host of information on the report page, including:

• The top 10 influencers (@jaredsprobiotic, @kevitadrinks, and @wholefoods lead the pack).
• The top hashtags (#guthealth is in second place after #kombucha).
• The top word pairs (farmers+market, followed by kombucha+tap).
• Links to dozens of URLs mentioned in tweets, such as news reports on gut health; blog posts on gifts for a foodie – kudos to Wild Tea; and even a video from a Denver TV station about National Rosé Day – featuring Rowdy Mermaid (at 2:30); and much, much, more.

Anyone who wants to geek out on Twitter stats should download the NodeXL Workbook at the end of the report. Be warned: wrap a cold towel around your head before opening. You’ll need a Ph.D. in data analytics to fully understand the details–or at the least a copy of this book!

The Kombucha Brewers Twitter Community

In contrast to the report above, this NodeXL report includes just the activity from and between kombucha brewers on Twitter, excluding all others.

It’s not surprising to see the number of red circles — brands mostly tweet about themselves.

The “top influencers” on Twitter are some of the best-known brands:

• @gtskombucha
• @kevitadrinks
• @rowdymermaid
• @hellokombucha
• @drinkhealthade
• @holykombucha
• @kombuchatown
• @hummkombucha
• @jarrkombucha

However, the report lists a different group of brands who are the “most mentioned”:

• @grimrossbrewing
• @covekombucha
• @feel_good_foods
• @flyingembers
• @bootlegbucha
• @jarrkombucha
• @capitalkombucha
• @motherkombucha
• @drinkhealthade

Recommendations

Thanks to NodeXL maps, we have unique insights into the complex network of brands and their customers.

We believe nothing matches the raw power of Twitter for engaging in online conversations, building a community of followers, and being part of the growing worldwide interest in ‘booch. More brands really should join in. Here’s why.

The business benefits from being on Twitter include:

• Increase brand awareness & monitor your reputation.
• Keep up with the latest trends in the industry by following hashtags.
• Drive traffic to your website.

• Amplify the impact of your other social media accounts (Instagram, blogs, Facebook).

• Monitor your brand reputation & eavesdrop on customer comments

• 

• 

• Tune into consumer sentiment (anyone NOT heard people say this?):

• 

• 

• Enable a vehicle for immediate customer feedback. (As shown in the GTs example.) Just be sure to monitor Twitter regularly for mention of your brand.
• Increase the reach and impact of your PR initiatives, especially if you are quoted in the media. Having a Twitter account enables direct links for customers to click through. Contrast the ease of linking to the UK’s Real Kombucha with the lack of this option for Alaska’s Kenai Kombucha (we’re not picking on them, this would be equally true of the 82% of brands who aren’t on Twitter):

• 

• 

• Bask in reflected glory and retweet what others are saying about you. This is much more impactful that banging your own drum:

In Conclusion

While Twitter is a distant third behind the other two social media platforms we’ve analyzed, it has tremendous potential. Unlike Instagram, you won’t be judged on the quality of the pictures alone. Twitter also allows you to embed links in messages. You can drive followers to other sources of information. It has rich multimedia capabilities, including the ability to add images, videos, or GIFs to your tweets. People engage in conversations on Twitter. You can even run polls (on favorite flavors, food pairings and more). Heck, you don’t even have to create content from scratch, since re-tweets are a great way of boosting your visibility and building relationships with customers.

At the very least, we recommend choosing a few key players in the space to keep updated with what’s going on. Check out Rosa Fasching (if you don’t know who she is, tune in to what Dennis Kelleher said about her at the Berlin Summit), BevNet, and, of course, Hannah Crum; not to mention, ahem, Boochnews! Plus, any of the brands you are curious about that are listed in our Worldwide Directory.

Here’s a useful set of guidelines for building your brand on Twitter.

Disclaimer

The content of this article is accurate to the best of our knowledge and is presented for general informational purposes only. The opinions are those of the editor. Please send corrections or questions to ian@boochnews.com. Comments are welcome.