2022 Social Media Stats: Instagram
This is the fifth annual report on the social media statistics of leading kombucha brands.
At the end of 2018, we published an initial, informal survey of kombucha brands’ presence on social media. At the time, we reviewed the stats for the number of posts and followers, or likes, on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram of a small group of 140 brands.
The 2019 survey selected the top 20 from 1,400 brands listed at the time in the Booch News Worldwide Directory. In 2020, the survey covered over 1,700 brands. In 2021, the number of kombucha brands worldwide has grown to over 2,000. By the close of December 2022, we were tracking 2,629 brands, and all but 123 had an Instagram account.
The most active social media platform in terms of posts and comments is, as always, Instagram.
Comparing the 2021 numbers to those from today shows several trends.
This table highlights the percent increase (or decrease) in the number of followers of the 19 brands listed in last year’s report
Social media slowdown?
GT’s amd Komvida are clear winners in absolute number of new followers, adding over 25,000 followers each in 2022. However, this comes nowhere near to the previous records of 74,800 followers that Humm added in 2020 and the 71,781 added by Komvida last year. As the market leader GT’s has been adding over 20,000 followers annually for the past three years. However, back in 2019, they added 68,000 new people. Likewise, Komvida added 46,000 fewer in 2022 than 2021.
This plateauing in the growth of new followers is typical of the industry leaders. While it might not be significant in terms of sales (we cannot know since no brands report unit volumes), it might be due to a shifting demographic and indicate more mainstream acceptance of kombucha. Perhaps the number of brand evangelists drinking ‘booch, who would become fans on social media, is a finite universe. People who buy the drink as a matter of course would not be online followers any more than they would for other staples.
On the other hand…
What’s true of the global leaders above is not, however, true of the vast majority of brands worldwide. For what it’s worth, the brands in the Worldwide Directory added just over 1.5 million followers in 2022 for a total of 7,173,625. This is a fraction of 1.5 billion who use Insta each month–a remarkable 18% of the world’s population! Some customers might, of course, follow more than one brand.
It’s interesting to see that four brands experienced a decrease in the number of followers in 2022. This might be due to the proactive pruning of ‘fake followers’ — there are several free tools that give insight into Instagram audience quality. This article recommends steps brands should take to remove suspicious followers.
The numbers for Biozen are all over the map. In 2021 they saw a 7% decline in the number of followers over 2020. This time, they lead with a 48% increase. Good for them.
Posts
It’s safe to assume that leading brands employ teams of social media managers to update Instagram. And they’ve been very busy in 2022. This table shows the change in the number of posts of the 19 leaders we’ve tracked since 2019.
Comparing these numbers to the previous years, it’s apparent the furious pace of posting by leading brands continues. Take a look at their feeds, and you’ll see these are not just casual shots of a bottle of ‘booch on the beach. They employ art directors, photographers, and writers who keep their tens of thousands of followers informed and entertained.
Again, FWIW, there are 701,465 posts shown in the accounts we list. That’s a lot of pictures!
2022 Leader Board
Here are the leading ‘pure-play’ kombucha brands ranked by the number of followers. We’ve left out companies such as Suja Organic, Flax & Kale, and Rude Health, who make many other products in addition to ‘booch that attract Instagram followers. We also omit brewers such as Sierra Nevada, who make hard kombucha but primarily sell beer.
The right column shows the ranking from a year ago.
In terms of the number of followers, GTs is the perennial leader, as you’d expect from the brand that created the category. Komvida was the new entry into the top four.
Over half are located outside the USA. There are four brands from Brazil, two from Chile, as well as brands from Australia, Turkey, Colombia, Canada, and India.
The Booch News Worldwide Directory lists all brands, with links to their websites and social media sites.
The curious case of Revive Kombucha
While most brands invest in social media as a significant marketing tool to grow the number of followers year-over-year there is a notable contrarian.
Petaluma, California-based Revive Kombucha is a curious case of a brand committing social media suicide. Back in 2019 were on the global Leader Board, with 24,500 followers. In 2020 they again made the tables with 1,301 posts in a single year. In 2021 they passed the 25,000 follower threshold.
But then, in June 2021, they deleted all except two posts and announced to their Revive Kombucha Instagram followers
BIG news coming soon… but the only way to find out is to follow our new account, @revivedrinks
The new Revive Drinks Instagram account has so far attracted only 950 followers! Over 24,00 have been abandoned.
Curious.
At the time of posting we have reached out to Revive for comment but have not heard back.
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.
