Digiday+ Research: Have social platforms’ brand-appropriateness peaked for agencies?

This year, Digiday’s survey found that 79% of agency pros said Instagram is appropriate for their clients’ brands, down from 88% last year — a stat that tracks with previous Digiday+ Research coverage that found the social platform is also losing brand-building clout. Meanwhile, respondents who said Twitter is appropriate for clients’ brands fell from 62% last year to 54% this year.

Survey respondents who identified Twitter as somewhat appropriate for their clients’ brands remained steady at 31% this year. But for Instagram, that percentage rose significantly: 21% of agency pros said Instagram is somewhat brand-appropriate for clients, compared with 11% last year — a potentially troubling sign for the Meta-owned property. But it is also worth noting that no survey respondents said Instagram and Twitter are not appropriate at all for their clients’ brands – even as news of Twitter’s business moves gets messier.

Digiday’s survey also found that Facebook and YouTube are down this year for brand-appropriateness, according to agency pros — despite research showing publishers continue to bet heavily on Facebook. The decline for these two platforms appears less steep than that of Instagram and Twitter.

Three-quarters of respondents said Facebook is appropriate for their clients’ brands this year, down from 80% last year. Meanwhile, 78% said YouTube — which is potentially getting ready to let third-party ad tech companies serve ads on the platform — is appropriate for clients this year, compared with 83% last year.

The number of agency pros who said YouTube is somewhat brand-appropriate for clients remained unchanged this year at 15%, while that percentage rose for Facebook from 16% last year to 21% this year. Just as with Instagram and Twitter, zero respondents said Facebook is not appropriate at all for their clients’ brands, and very few said YouTube is not at all brand-appropriate.