See the most-shared Facebook brand posts from last week
by Ilyse Liffreing January 17, 2017
Oregon Zoo, Georgia Tech, Kit Kat and Arby's bring the smiles on social.
Mark Twain once said, "The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter." Humor is a universal indulgence, but with tastes varying around the world it can be tricky to master in advertising. Last week, brands that successfully solicited smiles saw the most shares on Facebook. The Oregon Zoo played up its animals messing around in the snow, Live Nation surprised people in an elevator with performances from the lead singer of Foreigner and Kit Kat gave its own twist to a popular meme.
Unmetric, a social-media intelligence firm, uses an analytics platform to track brands with the highest amount of engagement for posts.
Here are the brand posts that received the most shares on Facebook last week:
In a post that received 334,216 shares last week (the most by far), Oregon Zoo showed their polar bears, seals, otters and elephants enjoying a snow day at the zoo. The polar bear is especially comical as it rolls around and slips into the water after trying to break through a mountain of snow. The video post got 13 million views, 136,000 reactions and 14,000 comments.
When the Georgia Tech swim team got snowed in and couldn't make their meet, the snowy entrance to the team's hotel became their pool. Decked in their suits and caps, the students filmed a hilarious relay on the snowy ground. The university's social media team posted the video and it quickly gained traction. Georgia Tech's Facebook posts usually average 100 shares, but this one saw 136,020. Georgia Tech commented on the post, saying that it was the school's most liked and shared post ever. The video post also got 12 million views, 67,000 reactions and 10,000 comments.
However, not everyone appreciated the joviality. One commenter wrote, "I thought GT students were supposed to be smart." That didn't trip up the school; it fired back with, "Well, in the past year or so our students have helped discover water on Mars and the existence of gravitational waves. We're also glad they are having a good time doing it."
To promote Foreigner and Cheap Trick's upcoming 40th anniversary tour, Live Nation attacked funny bones. The brand had Foreigner lead singer Kelly Hansen surprise people in an elevator by breaking out into a different hit song on every floor. The post was shared 32,962 times, got 22,000 reactions, 1,600 comments and the nearly two-minute-long video saw two million views.
In a Facebook post that brought about 25,765 shares, Kit Kat made its own version of a popular meme. The original meme called "Kermit vs. Evil Kermit," shows two Kermit looking at each other, but one in a Star Wars-style cloak. Kit Kat removed the Kermits and replaced them with candy bars.
The post, which received 90,000 reactions and 6,900 comments, started a debate in the comments about which brand—Denny's, Arby's, Wendy's or Kit Kat—has the funniest social posts. While most comments pulled for Arby's, one commenter wrote, "Wendy's is king of the savage Twitter Burn. Arby's is king of nerd references. KitKat is Meme Lord extraordinaire."
The fast food brand also made its way into the most shared posts of last week. Arby's is known for using its food to reference popular TV shows in its posts. Last week, the brand used its mozzarella sticks to portray a well-known scene from "King of the Hill." The mozzarella sticks are dressed as the characters and are holding cardboard beers. The gif post was shared 13,270 times, and got 951,000 views, 43,000 reactions and 4,400 comments.
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