One question that constantly comes up with business owners, people who work in marketing ask “Does 360 content get more views or engagement in social media?”. The simple answer is yes for photo and video, but you want to know how much better is it? Today we are going to look at 360 social media engagement facts using real-world examples.

360 Social Media Engagement Facts & Statistics

I am also going to be using the worlds most popular social media site, Facebook. The reason is everyone either knows, understands or uses Facebook. Also its the one platform that uses 360 photos and 360 videos. Some platforms like YouTube only use video, for example. Plus comparing Facebook Video or photostats to YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram amongst others are like comparing ‘apples to oranges’. You can see the full list of 360 social media channels that use 360 content here (coming soon).

Before I delve into the 360 statistics, I would like to explain how visual content impacts your impressions, engagement and sale-ability. It is no secret that posts with images receive 2.3 times more views than ones without. Anyone who has posted online will tell you without question that they get an exponential amount of views. Plus it is no secret that video content receives 135% more views compared to photos with images.

For this, I will be using data from either my own Facebook page as well as clients that I have worked with in the past. Please note that each person’s social media channels statistics. For some the numbers, I am showing content that could be much higher or lower than your own social media channels. That being said, what I am focusing on is the difference the 360 content makes compared to their traditional content.

People engaging in 360 social media

360 Photo VS Traditional Photo

A Bit About The Client:

Pink Caviar Events are Sydney’s premier wedding and event planners. They wanted to give 360 content a try to see if it made a difference to their social media channels. They decided to try something simple and use it for a wedding setup. It was a great idea because if you look at the 2 example posts below, you not only get a sense of the work but also the feel and scope of their work. This is because they often have to set up and pack-down large rooms and the scope of their work is never truly seen on social media.

360 Photo

We found a couple of interesting things when posting 360 photos to Facebook. Firstly the retention rate is higher because the moment people click on the post with a 360 image, they immediately begin to explore the content. Also, the statistics are exceptionally higher as it is shared, liked and commented on. As a result, it has over 2,000 views at the time of writing this.

Traditional Photo

Compare this to the traditional photos taken at the same event and posted to the same Facebook timeline has received close to 200 views. Some likes but no shares or comments.

As you can also see both posts did everything right. They not only included a photo (360 or traditional) but also tagged the location, used appropriate hashtags amongst other things to increase visibility. The only main difference is that one is a 360 photo and one is a traditional photo which resulted in a ten-fold increase.

360 Video VS Traditional Video

A Bit About The Client:

Century 21 Armstrong-Smith is a real estate agent based in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney that focuses on sale and rental of residential and commercial properties in the area. Their primary focus on content is to showcase listing they have on offer to potential buyers, sellers and renters. Compared to their other videos, I have spoken to the owners and know that this 360 video was not boosted. A lot of their content for sales are ‘boosted’ to their target audience in the local area. This makes sense as they are in a very localised and competitive market. For this brief, they wanted to try something different, and we created a 360 explainer video for their social media channels (specifically Facebook and YouTube). We also took a fun 360 family photo which also had a high amount of likes and engagement.

360 Video

This video is their highest non-boosted video to date. It also has an extremely high amount of likes and also shares compared to their other video content.

Traditional Video

Compare that to the other non-property focus video (as mentioned those get a paid boost) this one has received over 800 views and a dozen likes. It was a high reaching video compared to their others which can get around 50-100 views.

360 Social Media Engagement A Growing Market

When it comes to 360 social media engagement for photo and video, there is a clear trend of higher views, commenting, engagement, share-ability. As a result of a bigger impact on any companies social media channels. Viewers stay on your page longer and now have an engaging element that traditional photo and video do not have. There is also the newer 360 live streaming which is perfect for social media.

Interested in using 360 content for your social media campaigns then contact us today. See how we can take your social media to the next level with 360.

Have you used 360 photos or video on your social media channels? How did you find the results? Are there any 360 social media engagement facts that we left out? Let us know and join the discussion down below :)

Dimitri Cassimatis( Founder )

Dimitri is the founder of Simply 360, which specialises in creating immersive, interactive and engaging 360 / VR virtual tours, AR integration and marketing consultancy. He has worked in the digital marketing industry for over 15 years and has a passion for creating virtual tours with a key focus in strategic implementation.