Regular readers will know that we frequently cover the top content mentioning Fortune 100 brands, but this month and going forward we’re going to expand the scope of this analysis a little.
In the past we’ve looked specifically at earned media coverage, but we thought to ourselves hey, since we have data on Facebook, Instagram, X, Reddit, and others just sitting there in the dashboard we’ve already created for this, we may as well put it to good use, right? So that’s what we’ve done this time around — as well as the earned media analysis you’ve come to know and love, we’re also including some snapshots from across the social web on some of the biggest brands in the world.
One that immediately caught our eye when we expanded our scope for September was Apple, for a number of reasons, but primarily through its campaign with Olivia Rodrigo, with whom they partnered for the filming of the music video for her ‘get him back!’ video.
Rodrigo and Apple both did their own posts about the video, promoting the iPhone 15 Pro that it was filmed on, and each received an avalanche of engagements — though Rodrigo’s post was clearly the more successful.
The artist promoted the video through a gallery of images, while Apple’s post featured a Behind The Scenes of the shoot, receiving 2.7M and 950k engagements respectively.
Whichever way you slice it, this was a huge win for Apple and its phone’s camera capabilities, but the good vibes didn’t stop there. In fact, Rodrigo’s post was not the only one that boasted on Apple’s behalf, as Melbourne-based photographer Peter Yan showcased the camera’s zoom capabilities compared to previous versions of the iPhone. This post was responsible for almost two million engagements itself, and it’s clear that the camera’s quality is resonating with its users.
Shaquille O’Neal continues to bring the headlines
Speaking of influencers, we can’t let the month of September go by without looking at the continued power of Shaquille O’Neal to move the needle for brands. The former NBA star has his fingers in all sorts of pies, most recently as a high-profile spokesperson for Papa John’s (…pizza pies… geddit?!). But in September it was Shaq’s relationship with big retailers that brought the headlines, both in earned and social media.
First in earned coverage, multiple outlets reported on the star unexpectedly buying a $1,200 phone for a stranger at a local Best Buy in Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s a feel-good, human-interest story that highlights generosity of the type we’ve seen be successful before that shows how celebrities can make a positive impact on their communities.
The biggest story came from a local CBS affiliate, but more than 100 articles were published to the tune of almost half a million engagements. While the story is mostly about Shaq, Best Buy gets a nice positive association through 1) him choosing to shop there and 2) being linked with feelgood news such as this.
The same is true of Walmart for the other Shaq post we’re featuring this month, which is a reddit post from r/MadeMeSmile highlighting his decision to sell $12 shoes at Walmart. The comments are full of praise for Shaq as a person and a businessman, while Walmart catches some nice comments due to its support for the line as well.
Costco gets all sorts of good press
We’ll stick with big retailers for the last trend we saw in September, and that’s that people really like Costco!
The coverage actually mirrors that of Shaq above, just without the celebrity influence. The brand’s biggest mentions in September included a positive story about one of their employees returning cash to a customer, and a Reddit post in r/oddlysatisfying saw more than 34k upvotes as pumpkin pies flew off the retailer’s shelves to kick off fall.
This again shows the power of highlighting your employees taking selfless actions, and generally that keeping both your customers and employees happy can lead to great press with very little effort.
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