Shareablee

Why do we covet ‘sharing’? A social ‘share’ of brand content means placing your personal brand behind what a brand stands for, and proactively recommending it to your friends, family. As such, sharing is the most revered, and also the hardest to achieve, social metric. It can’t be achieved by sheer force of media dollars, and has to still contain some ‘pass-along value’ – something special, to spark that kind of brand connection and endorsement. 

But to think of the value of sharing only in terms of these intangibles, is to overlook some of its core power – the ability to exponentially drive reach, clicks back to a site and to amass huge earned media value. 

We have compiled some key findings around the impact of social sharing below – over and above what we intrinsically infer, regarding its impact on brand-building and loyalty. 

1. More Shares Means (disproportionately) Greater Social Impressions 

The Publishing, Television and Sports categories have seen the greatest growth in amplification since 2013, at 480%, 320% and 134%, respectively. For these three categories, shares on Facebook contributed to one third or more of their total impressions.

2. Video Shares are on the Rise… 

Shares on social video posts have grown 140% since 2013. As you can see in the chart below, sharing accounted for 9% of all social actions on Facebook in 2014. Shares on videos made up 7% of that 9%, demonstrating the virality of social video. Of the top Facebook video posts, shares claimed 38% of all actions taken on these posts.

3. Retweets Increase Referral Traffic 

In one of our data analyses, we found that there is a direct positive correlation between retweets and referral traffic on Twitter, as illustrated below:

4. Social Word of Mouth is More Powerful than Fan Counts 

As tempting as it may be to judge social success by your number of fans, social performance is best measured by the size of a brand’s active audience. Take a look at these three Wednesday Primetime shows below. While the fan and follower counts tell one story, the social amplification numbers truly show the value of their social efforts.

So what is the Key Criteria of Shareablee Content? 

Shareablee’s CEO and Founder, Tania Yuki, recently gave a presentation on “What Makes Content Shareable” at the Advertising Research Foundation’s Re:Think 2015. She revealed Shareablee’s exciting new research on what makes content shareable and how brands can use these insights to create and activate audiences around the right content. 

Find out more by downloading the What Makes Content Shareable presentation. If you would like a personal walkthrough of the presentation, please contact [email protected]. 

Originally posted on TV Media Insights with Shareablee data, by Marc Berman

“The Walking Dead” on AMC, once again, topped the most recent weekly ranking of Primetime Shows by Amplification, as compiled by Shareablee. Shareablee measures the various components in social media, and amplification is the sum of all shares and retweets on posts and tweets published by a TV show on Facebook and on Twitter.

“The Walking Dead,” which featured the deaths of three characters, had 200,337 total shares on Facebook and 45,350 total shares on Twitter for the week of March 9, which…added up…equals an amplification of 245,687. Comparably, this was a 77 percent rise from one week earlier (thanks to the hefty increase in Facebook shares), and it was 99,457 more than the No. 2 occupant, Fox’s mega-hot “Empire,” which concludes its freshman season tonight and increased by a hefty 93 percent from one week earlier.

By Andrew Katz 

After a close friend joined Instagram, and proceeded to post numerous photos every day for several days straight, it was decided that she needed an “Instavention,” or in layman’s terms, an Instagram intervention. When my friends and I finally told her she needed to stop posting so much, she attributed it to her not knowing how to use Instagram. 

Individuals are not the only ones who struggle with the balance between quantity and quality. There are many brands that suffer from this as well, and could greatly benefit from an Instavention, or its equivalent on other social media networks. Shareablee has analyzed a myriad of different posting strategies that can help encourage audience engagement, and post frequency is often a large factor. 

In 2014, the average U.S. brand posted 1,183 times on Facebook, 2,287 times on Twitter, 389 times on Instagram and 382 times on Google+, but the post frequency differed greatly by industry. The average brand in the Health, Beverage and Food & Grocery industries posted less than 550 times, while the Publishing industry posted a whopping 9,730 times across the four networks. We’ve included a snapshot of the various industries’ cross-platform post frequency below:

There were also brands that posted well below or beyond those norms. The average automotive brand posted 1,627 times in 2014, but Ferrari drove the category average up with 10,875 posts, almost double the second place poster, Mercedes-Benz, and almost four times the third place poster, Kia. Ferrari fans do love Ferrari cars, but they also may not want to see the brand’s content every time they log onto Facebook. It’s important for brands to understand that Facebook is, first and foremost, a place for people to connect with friends and loved ones, and any surrounding content must add value to, and never detract from, this core function. 

While the Media Publishing industry performs well on social media despite its massive post volume, four brands found a way to post more than 57,000 times in 2014: The Huffington Post, The Guardian, TheStreet, and The Boston Globe. This level of posting may not be a bad thing. For example, The Huffington Post has placed in Shareablee’s Top 25 U.S. Social Brands of 2014 ranking and makes consistent appearances in Shareablee’s Publisher Social Scorecard each month. 

One of the key measures of success on social media is average engagement, which Shareablee defines as “actions divided by posts divided by audience,” calculating the number of fans that engage with each post. Even if your brand has nailed down its social content strategy and post-timing, too much posting may bring down your average engagement rate. And, that doesn’t even factor in the fatigue factor among your social audience, or the reality that Facebook’s Newsfeed will hide posts from your fans if you post too much. Even if you believe that total actions are the end-all and be-all of social KPIs, too much output (even if it is quality output) may result in an engagement drop from your brand’s fans and followers. 

What is the perfect post frequency? 

There is no perfect post frequency but, as a rule of thumb we recommend comparing your average post engagement with post frequency. If you're posting more frequently than your category and receiving at least average or greater-than-average results, keep doing what you're doing. If, however, you're seeing lower-than-average returns, it might be time to consider stepping down on the volume, just until you adjust your messaging to ensure high returns. Conversely, if you're seeing higher-than-average returns and posting less than average, this signals an opportunity to potentially drive additional content, as your audience by all accounts can't get enough of what you're already publishing. 

So, how do you find the sweet spot for your brand and avoid an Instavention? Find out which brands are most similar to yours by contacting Shareablee (I’m [email protected]), and we’ll help you figure out the right post frequency to reach your audience while maximizing your engagement rate. 

Facebook recently announced that it would be removing “memorialized and voluntarily deactivated accounts” in an effort to make audience data more meaningful for brands. We agree that this will ensure that its data is consistent and current, and this is an opportunity for brands to get a real sense of engaged audience members. 

At Shareablee, we analyzed fan growth over the last month and for 1000 top performing brands on Facebook, we saw that nearly 50% had an average fan decrease of 0.13% between February 25 and March 11. That said, according to Facebook this new shift will not occur for another few weeks, so it remains to be seen whether we will see a more dramatic drop in the coming months. 

The good news of all of this is that the average engagement per post (the number of actions per post per fan) across US brands, which is currently 0.13%, should increase with this change to fan counts; and your brand’s percentage of reach should see this increase as well. 

It’s important to note that the number of fans is not the only indicator of the true size and value of your brand’s social community. Understanding the actual reach, quality of activity and interactions that your social audience has with your brand can often provide a better indication of your brand’s social performance, allowing you to experiment, analyze and improve on your social marketing communications. 

For brands, publishers and properties that have devoted time and resources to building up a thriving social fan base on Facebook, this change will allow you to get a better sense of your true potential audience, without bearing the burden of fans who you will never be able to activate. This allows brands to build a social strategy that focuses on what their fans want, turn the true fans into loyal advocates, increase customer interactions and significantly improve marketing performance. 

As we noted when Instagram deactivated spam accounts, any time an emerging media begins to mature, there is a natural leveling out of best practices. Having authentic conversations with your target audience is the foremost function of any social platform. By removing inactive accounts from fan counts, Facebook retains its value to the consumer, and the brands who serve them. 

Our clients continue to see dramatic growth in social impressions and engagement with some of our partners reaching their highest levels of engagement in the past year. In fact, engagement on Facebook grew an impressive 76% in 2014, and with the 147% growth of social video on the platform, it shows no immediate signs of slowing down. 

Please feel free to contact [email protected] with any questions you have regarding how this may impact your brand. 

Originally posted on TV Media Insights with Shareablee data by Marc Berman.

“The Walking Dead” on AMC, not surprisingly, topped the most recent weekly ranking of Primetime Shows by Amplification, as compiled by Shareablee. Shareablee measures the various components in social media, and amplification is the sum of all shares and retweets on posts and tweets published by a TV show on Facebook and on Twitter.

“The Walking Dead” had 95,135 total shares on Facebook and 43,950 total shares on twitter for the week of March 2, which…added up…equals an amplification of 139,085. Comparably, this was 12,153 more than the No. 2 occupant, “The Kelly File” on Fox News Channel (which resonates specifically via the shares on Facebook and was active as a result of a speech given by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu).

By Kara Lawson

Shareablee conducted an analysis of the red carpet season’s biggest events on Facebook to see which brands, sponsors and advertisers dominated. Surprisingly, many sponsors did not publish any social content for the events they paid to sponsor. For example, at the Oscars, only half of the sponsors had any Facebook activity surrounding The Academy Awards. 

As far as sponsors stepping up their social game, the Grammys sponsors dominated with four of the top five social winners on Facebook. We ranked the red carpet seasons’ events based on social engagement on Facebook: 

Grammys – 742,603 total actions 

Academy Awards – 26,231 total actions 

Golden Globes – 7,939 total actions 

SAG Awards – 866 total actions 

Here are the top five social winners of the January/February red carpet season: 

1. People.com 

People, a major sponsor of the Grammys, dominated social on Facebook during the event. Not only did the publisher post over 9x more than any other sponsor, it also captured over 530K social actions on Facebook. This is 436% more Facebook actions than the second-best performing sponsor at any of the awards shows. The publisher’s top performing content piece was its post congratulating Carrie Underwood on her win, bringing in nearly 135K Facebook actions.

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Post by People.com.

2. CoverGirl 

The beauty brand’s Grammys performance on Facebook captured nearly 100K total social actions, scoring CoverGirl second place overall in the social red carpet season. The brand’s hashtag campaign #GetThatGlam resounded well with their Facebook audience. The campaign, which was a joint effort with E! Online, analyzed the red carpet makeup looks and posted products that would achieve the same looks for the brand’s social audience, with posts featuring Katy Perry dominating the effort. CoverGirl’s top performing posts featuring the music icon captured a combined 96K total Facebook actions.

3. Olay 

Olay, the second beauty brand to score in the top five sponsors on Facebook, captured a combined 74K total actions on the platform with its #Regenerist product hashtag campaign. One post driving the brand’s social customers to buy the Regenerist product drove up to 73K of these social actions.

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Post by Olay.

4. MasterCard

The credit card giant’s social activity around its Grammys sponsorship brought in almost 22K social actions. Like CoverGirl, MasterCard’s hashtag campaign, #PricelessSurprises, drove the event’s posts and social activity. The campaign featured a scavenger hunt around LA, with winners receiving Gwen Stefani tickets, as well as tickets to the Grammys. The brand’s top performing Facebook post, a video showcasing the scavenger hunt, captured over 13K total actions, and nearly 1.9 million video views.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

Post by MasterCard.

5. Samsung Mobile 

The only non-Grammys sponsor to place in the top five, Samsung Mobile’s video post during the Oscars promoting the Galaxy product line brought in nearly 14K of the brand’s total 15K Facebook actions. The video also brought in over 6.6 million views. This is a prime example of a brand expertly integrating its product promotion with its event sponsorship, crafting content that resonates with the Oscars social audience.

(function(d, s, id) { var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0]; if (d.getElementById(id)) return; js = d.createElement(s); js.id = id; js.src = "//connect.facebook.net/en_US/all.js#xfbml=1"; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs);}(document, 'script', 'facebook-jssdk'));

Post by Samsung Mobile USA.

Not quite as popular as Taylor Swift's cats, though

Originally posted on ADWEEK with SHAREABLEE data by Michelle Castillo

If you approached random millennials in the U.S. and mentioned the line, "in West Philadelphia born and raised," there's a high probability they'd not only the finish the phrase—"on a playground I spent most of my days"—but also recite the entire Fresh Prince of Bel-Air theme from memory.

Okay, we don't have scientific studies to back this up, but according to our our weekly Adweek/Shareablee branded Instagram video chart, Will Smith's recognizable rhyme still strikes a chord. His performance of the song on The Ellen Show received almost 16,000 comments on the platform and was viewed upward of 317,000. The '90s are back, indeed.

Originally posted on Adweek's SocialTimes by Tania Yuki

In February, U.S. media publishers accounted for 652M total social actions, with 439M actions from Facebook, 32M from Twitter and 181M from Instagram. This represents a 3 percent growth of social engagement for the category, compared to January 2015.

Red Carpet Season

Entertainment was the top performing publisher category, ranked by volume of social media actions across all platforms, followed by General News and Fashion & Style, capturing 78.6M, 44.7M and 28.1M total social actions, respectively. BuzzFeed, The Huffington Post and ELLE Magazine were the top performing properties in each of these categories.

February’s red carpet season and “The Dress” debate drove most of the month’s social activity. BuzzFeed, the first outlet to promote the Tumblr post igniting #TheDress debate, captured more than 515K combined actions across Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for posts related to the #TheDress. Posts from the GRAMMYs and The Academy Awards also brought in the most actions for the Entertainment media publishing category in February, with posts about Taylor Swift and Lady Gaga capturing the highest social buzz during the shows.

New York Fashion Week and The Academy Awards played a large part in the growth of the Fashion & Style category. Vogue led the category on Instagram, with Fashion Week-themed posts featuring the Beckham clan, Taylor Swift and Karlie Kloss. ELLE Magazine, the most socially engaged property in the category, captured the highest engagement with an Oscars-themed tweet featuring Patricia Arquette. Vanity Fair, boasting a 94 percent growth since January, saw social success with its Facebook post featuring Jennifer Lopez on The Oscars red carpet.

The Top 10 Social Publishers in February

In February’s edition of the Shareablee Publisher Social Scorecard, Entertainment Weekly netted the highest social engagement growth at 59 percent to place number 9 after the property’s hiatus from the ranking since November. Billboard saw a 46 percent growth in social engagement, propelling the property to the secure the number 7 spot in February, from number 9 in January. The Huffington Post and BuzzFeed led the media publishing category on Facebook with over 11M and 10.5 million actions, respectively. Bleacher Report captured the number one spot on Twitter with 1.9M actions.

For the first time since the publisher ranking’s inception, there was a decline in total actions on Instagram for the media publishing category. This was largely due to a 9% decrease in National Geographic’s total Instagram actions, which posted 16% less on the platform compared to January. The media publishing category saw a 4% increase in social engagement on both Facebook and Twitter.

Fastest Growing Categories and Publishers

The fastest growing categories by volume of social media actions were Fashion & Style, Entertainment and Home & Garden, growing 32 percent, 22 percent and 12 percent, respectively. The Fashion & Style category’s growth of 32% was driven largely by two properties: Marie Claire and Vanity Fair, with 147 percent and 94 percent growth rates. OK! Magazine had the highest growth for the Entertainment category at 220 percent; and in the Home & Garden category, ELLE Decor saw the highest growth at 37 percent.

Shareablee recently launched a weekly social amplification ranking with TV Media Insights, a TV ratings and news conglomerate. Amplification is the sum of all shares and retweets on posts and tweets published by a TV show on Facebook and on Twitter. 

In the first edition of the ranking for the week of February 23 – March 1, the Parks and Recreation series finale came in at number one. The TV show received 27,304 total shares on Facebook and a whopping 185,136 total retweets on Twitter, more than 3x as many retweets as the next highest performing TV show on Twitter. Parks and Recreation’s top performing tweet received over 28K retweets alone.

The full top 10 TV show amplification ranking that first appeared in TV Media Insights original article can be viewed below.

1. “Parks and Recreation” (NBC) – series finale: 212,400 (27,304 total shares; 185, 136 total retweets) 2. “The Kelly File” (Fox News Channel): 150,463 (150,463 total shares; 0 retweets) 3. “Once Upon a Time” (ABC) – return: 126,353 (99,774 shares; 26,579 retweets) 4. “The Voice” (NBC): 110,281 (55,109 shares; 55,172 retweets) 5. “Empire” (Fox): 93,716 (77,292 shares; 16, 424 retweets) 6. “The Walking Dead” (AMC): 90,018 (63,680 shares; 26,338 retweets) 7. “Pretty Little Liars” (ABC Family): 62,976 (20,191 shares; 42,785 retweets) 8. “How To Get Away With Murder” (ABC) – season finale: 44,525 (17,079 shares; 27,446 retweets) 9. “Arrow” (CW): 25,011 (16,755 shares; 8,256 retweets) 10. “The Big Bang Theory” (CBS): 24.187 (18,009 shares; 6,178 retweets)

On top of the unprecedented number of retweets, Parks and Recreation’s amplification score grew 684% compared to the week prior. To see if this was a common theme among other long-running series, Shareablee conducted an analysis of other TV shows that recently aired their series finales. Though none of the shows that were analyzed came close to the 185,136 retweets that Parks and Recreation received, the amplification growth rates from the week prior to these shows’ series finales were astounding.

Though Sons of Anarchy’s series finale received 62% more amplification that Parks and Recreation, it was mostly due to their Facebook activity, which brought in nearly 273K shares. Like Parks and Recreation’s most retweeted tweet, Sons of Anarchy’s most shared post was done for the fans.

Originally posted on TV Media Insights by Marc Berman with Shareablee data

Shareablee, which measures the various components in social media, has issued a ranking for the top U.S. shows overall based engagement for the week of Feb. 23.

Ranked by what it refers to as amplification, which is the sum of all shares and retweets on posts and tweets published by a TV show on Facebook and on Twitter, the one hour series-finale of NBC’s “Parks and Recreation” on Tuesday, Feb. 24 in the 10 p.m. hour (out of two-hours of “The Voice”) topped the total amplification ranking. The breakdown was 27, 304 total shares on Facebook and 185,136 total shares on Twitter. And the two combined (which is what the ranking is based on) totaled 212,440, which was a massive 684 percent jump from the prior week. Since the “Parks and Recreation” series only managed to score 4.15 million viewers and a 1.6 rating/5 share in adults 18-49 based on the Live + Same Day data, there is obviously much more to measuring the success of a series – or lack of – than the traditional Nielsen ratings.

By Kara Lawson

Netflix’s hit original series, House of Cards, came out with a social bang during its debut week, capturing 47% more social engagement compared to its debut week in 2014. This growth is driven by a 45% increase on Facebook, 14% on Twitter and 134% on Instagram. See the social best practices that House of Cards utilized to propel its social strategy. 

1. Social Video Prevails With engagement on video posts outpacing available content in 2014, many brands, TV shows and publishers are eager to include video as part of their social content strategy; and House of Cards is no exception. Several of the show’s top social posts across all social platforms contained video promoting the season premiere. Clever and chilling captions accompanied these video clips and trailers, further engaging social audiences. The top post for the show garnered over 1.7M Facebook video views. 

52,842 Likes | 2,320 Comments | 20,102 Shares

4,922 Retweets | 4,160 Favorites

6,050 Likes | 572 Comments

2. Countdowns Drive Audience Participation House of Cards kept its viewers updated with social countdown posts, and saw huge social engagement numbers as a result. The amplification (shares and retweets) on this content also ranked among the highest of all social posts and tweets during the show’s debut week. 

2,984 Retweets | 1,923 Favorites

36,209 Likes | 1,348 Comments | 8,006 Shares

8,839 Likes | 272 Comments

3. Content Type Trumps Post Quantity Compared to Season 2’s debut week, House of Cards posted 48% less on social during Season 3’s debut week, yet saw a 47% increase in social actions. None of Season 2’s top promotional posts contained video, with the majority featuring images from the live premiere event and Valentine’s Day (when Season 2 premiered). The countdown posts were the only consistent top performing posts across both seasons, as well as one post from the live premiere event showing the main actors, Kevin Spacey and Robin Wright. Beyond video, House of Cards posted quotes and snippets from various episodes, which captured the attention and responses from those who had already watched those scenes, as well as those guessing what the mystery statements might mean. 

31,983 Likes | 433 Comments | 3,328 Shares

4,074 Retweets | 4,020 Favorites

7,397 Likes | 295 Comments

basketball offers clues to social video mastery with SHAREABLEE data in ADWEEK By Christopher Heine

If brands that are investing in March Madness—we're looking at you, Capital One, Coke and AT&T—want to effectively extend their campaigns to social video, they should watch basketball's big boys for guidance and inspiration. The National Basketball Association has consistently held the No. 1 slot for sports leagues on our Adweek/Shareablee weekly brand charts for Instagram clips, while often recapping a night's prior events, not with true video but with a rapid-fire series of photo stills.

Financial Services firms are quick to combine a paid media strategy with social media messaging to spur interaction with consumers

Originally posted on PR News with Shareablee data

Ad budgets devoted to prime-time TV still pack a punch for brands and organizations that can afford that kind of inventory. But in an increasingly social media age, relying too heavily on a paid media strategy may start to resemble the sound of one hand clapping. Not every campaign needs a paid/earned/owned media strategy, of course, but most every marketing effort needs an immersive component that will make the respective audience feel vested in the brand. A familiar refrain from PR managers: It’s all about the experience. 

Take the financial services sector, which saw social media engagement grow 6 percent in the fourth quarter of 2014 compared with third quarter of 2014, according to an exclusive study conducted by social media analytics company Shareablee. 

“Social media in financial services poses a new communications challenge,” said Tania Yuki, CEO of Shareablee. “While many brands seem to want to focus on the benefits of using their services and subscribing with them, this may not be the goose that lays the golden egg of social media strategies.” 

By Kara Lawson

Shareablee conducted an analysis of The Academy Awards’ biggest moments on social, as well as the show's sponsors and advertisers to see which of these brands showed stellar social performances during the awards show on February 22. Last year, Ellen DeGeneres took the social universe by storm with her Oscars’ selfie; but this year, Lady Gaga's performance of a medley of songs from "The Sound of Music" dominated on social. ABC, which aired the awards show, received over 8.4M views and 340K social actions on their Facebook post containing a video of the performance.

AARP, Disney and Samsung Mobile were among the top social performers, and their social best practices can be viewed below. 

1. Know Your Audience 

AARP achieved social success by posting about actors over the age of 50, their core audience demographic. The brand’s top socially engaged posts guessed what Meryl Streep would be wearing, and congratulated J.K. Simmons on his first Oscar win at the age of 60. 

2,375 Likes | 126 Comments | 161 Shares

14,531 Likes | 466 Comments | 642 Shares

2. Tie Products with Events 

Sponsors like Samsung Mobile USA and JCPenney gained social traction on their Facebook posts tying in the Oscars’ theme. Samsung’s video post promoted the Galaxy product line and related their products to filmmaking, while JCPenney took the opportunity to create a contest for charity, Oscars® Play to Give. 

737 Likes | 9 Comments | 18 Shares

149 Likes | 1 Comment | 17 Shares

3. Social Video Wins Again 

The Academy Awards’ social accounts received over 977K actions across social, with social video dominating their Facebook account. Posts featuring the opening number and Oscar winners’ speeches and winning moments captured the majority of The Academy’s Facebook engagement. Their top three video posts brought in nearly 10M views. 

110,331 Likes | 4,556 Comments | 94,347 Shares

71,523 Likes | 1,783 Comments | 22,579 Shares 

46,855 Likes | 2,221 Comments | 18,005 Shares 

4. Convey a Sense of Brand Community 

Among the show’s sponsors and advertisers, Disney came out on top with their posts congratulating the teams that brought in the brand’s two wins: Big Hero 6 won Best Animated Feature Film and Feast was awarded an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film. 

35,882 Likes | 476 Comments | 1,751 Shares 

28,117 Likes | 278 Comments | 991 Shares 

Nike and Victoria's Secret are killing it with SHAREABLEE data in ADWEEK By Christopher Heine

The following marketers regularly make our weekly Adweek/Shareablee chart for the best branded Instagram videos: Starbucks, Victoria's Secret, Nike, GoPro and theNational Basketball Association. Those names also appear in our newest rankings, which cover the period of Feb. 9 and Feb. 15.

Which brands appear on the chart is based on how many likes and comments their videos generate. We thought it'd be interesting to see how their consistently strong work impacts the number of followers they pick up.

Take a look at the Instagram audience lift each company has seen since we began tracking the social videos last April:

Starbucks went from 2.3 million followers to 3.7 million.

The National Basketball Association jumped from 2.3 million to 4.9 million.

GoPro surged from 1.9 million to 4.2 million.

Victoria's Secret clearly bested that trio, more than doubling its audience from 4.2 million to 10.5 million.

But Nike takes the proverbial cake, skyrocketing from 4 million to 12 million.

Originally posted on HUFFPOST TECH by Tania Yuki

While many believe space is the final frontier, from where I'm sitting the next hackable frontier is the human body. We've hacked transportation, production, distribution, and more recently, our environments and homes, so that we barely need to even move in order to have everything we need (thank you Nest). But before hacking, comes measurement, and this is where wearable tech comes into play.

I'm a runner, but I also swim, cycle and take dance and yoga classes. I am also an entrepreneur, so I sleep little, travel a lot and when I'm not running (usually late) to a meeting, I sit at a desk all day, and can sometimes be startlingly inactive without realizing it. I run an analytics company, so as you'd expect tracking is a bit of an obsession.

I've tried most every available wearable, sometimes a couple at a time, and here are some of my favorites:

(Warning note - as with laptop bags for women, design for wearables can be a struggle so I have filtered out anything that's too bulky, or that is bedazzled or too flashy for the gym like the new MICA). In my definition of wearables I am only interested in devices with a 24/7 application so I have also deliberately excluded any 'single use' wearables (such as Ringly), as I am massively in favor of wearables that can be always-on and become a way of life).

1) Misfit Shine

Pros: Simple, sleek design, barely there. Bluetooth connected, super easy to set up and stay synced. Great sleep tracking, and alarm times to wake you up during light sleep. A lot of options on exercise type (yoga, swimming), sports tracking is among the most accurate I've tried out. Swim tracking is also great to have. Working watch. 

Cons: No heart rate tracker. You have to tap the face to see the time, it looks weird in a meeting. Not much of an active online community, if you're into that kind of thing. The face sometimes pops out when you're taking a jacket off, if you're wearing anything tight in the sleeves.

2) Withings Pulse O2

The ultimate in connected wearable tech. It's easy to get a little carried away with all the add-ons, so only for the super committed. The look almost disqualified it from this list, but it's just sooo good in terms of its function that I had to keep it on. You can always pull your sleeve down. 

Pros: This one has it all and is by far the leader in terms of integrated health reporting, and tracking fitness/weight loss goals. The watch measures steps, sleep and heart rate (almost as well as my Garmin chest strap when I ran in the two together) and blood oxygen levels. In addition, Withings has smart bathroom scales, blood pressure monitor and a detailed sleep sensor that all feed into the same app. 

Cons: It can get a little much if you're not into total quantified self immersion, as I am. It also has two week battery life which is decent, but nothing like the 6 months+ you can get on the lower energy devices like the Misfit. Visually, I'm not massively in love. 

But it's truly worth the teeny bit of additional bulk, considering all the features if you're into that kind of stuff.

3) Jaybird Reign

Pros: Tracks running, swimming, cycling (there's a neat ankle strap that's worth it for a serious ride or spin class, a bit of a hassle if you're using a bike for short rides as you probably won't want to bother to keep moving it from your wrist to your ankle). Accurate automatic sleep tracking, Has some interesting functionality that tests your body's readiness to exercise/get going. Takes about two mins in the morning. Not all that ground-breaking, but one of the first attempts at actionable data in this kind of wearable device that attempts at insights rather than just reporting, and I think that's fun. 

Cons: Needs to be charged every 5 days, which can get annoying. The face of the band is a little clunkier than the Jawbone. Can't tell time. 

4) Fitbit Charge HR

Pros: Solid continuous heart rate tracking, clean design, automatic syncs. All of the basics, done very nicely and for a fair price. 

Cons: Not swim/shower friendly, hard to read HR when you're exercising (ie when you need it). The auto dim on the OLED screen gets tricky to activate throughout your workout. Five day battery life is on the longer side, but it can become another thing to remember to charge. 

5) Jawbone UP24

Pros: Water resistant, light, comfortable and with a fun-to-wear design, this is a great choice for measuring steps, workouts and sleep. I am also a fan of the 'idle alert', that lets you know when you've been sedentary for too long. 

Cons: No screen (if that worries you, I don't mind). It lacks some of the bells and whistles, which depending on how serious you want to get, may not matter to you (heart rate, etc). Battery life of 14 days, which feels short considering it is not doing the same back flips as other devices. 

And my last note - for those who run/walk only, pretty much any device in existence will suffice (even a Nike Fuel will do the job, although be careful not to flay your arms around too much in conversation, as this will unduly deem you an epic runner even if you haven't donned a running shoe in weeks). 

Enjoy! And please message me if there are any awesome wearables that you think deserve to make this list.

With engagement on video posts outpacing available content in 2014, it's no wonder that many brands are eager to include video as part of their social content strategy. As competition of the news feed intensifies, video has stood out as the most effective way to grab a few moments from a consumer's day. However, it's important to understand the lens and environment for which social video will be consumed. 

Here are 5 ways to effectively use video in your brand's social strategy. 

1) Make sure your videos are quick, to the point, and enlightening. Your videos need to involve something entertaining or inspiring for consumers to stop what they're doing and immerse themselves in your brand. For example, National Geographic's top video post in 2014 is a hyperlapse of fog rolling into the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco. It's simple, beautiful, and totally immersive. 

2) Instagram is exclusively consumed on mobile, so think about the screen and experience and less 'TV.' Think bite-sized content that creates a nice pause among the moments of someone's day. For Instagram, high-quality videos are key, but we really don't want anything overly produced. Videos that are too scripted or too crafted don't always work. 

3) On the other hand, more traditional online video works on Facebook. Posts can be longer, and although snackable video also works, there's a little more room to move in terms of how it looks. For Facebook, a broader approach can also work. 

4) You can repurpose your video content, but remember, social video was built to be consumed in an ephemeral way. Wasabi peas-like snackable videos that are bursting with flavor grab consumers' attention. For example, user-generated video has worked extremely well for GoPro, whose brand strategy relies on compelling UGC to tell its brand story.

5) As with anything, consistency is key. Brands that regularly invest in video as part of their social strategy are the ones that consistently rank as the top social brands in their category, like the NBA, Victoria's Secret, and The Ellen Show. If you're not already using video, get started. But remember, make sure to keep an 'always on' strategy.