Untangling Social Media Excellence: Five Typical Patterns of Super Successful Posts

Online social media plays an important role in the mix of many companies’ marketing communications. Thus, scholars have recently tried to uncover patterns that positively affect social media communication effectiveness, predominantly focusing on message characteristics. Although a lot of valuable insights have been generated, it remains unclear what the drivers of ‘super successful posts’ (SSP) are. Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to reveal why a very small proportion of social media posts significantly outperforms the majority of other posts. For this purpose, we employed case evidence from the automotive industry and collected 2,000 Facebook posts. In regard to the numbers of likes, comments and shares, the 20 most successful posts each were selected. After removing the duplicates, a final sample of 42 SSP remained. With an explorative multi-level approach, including two focus group sessions, an in-depth analysis was conducted for every post. Aiming to capture a comprehensive picture, we also investigated the context of each post beyond the online environment. With our analysis, we reveal five typical patterns of social media excellence (co-branding, wow effect, cognitive task, timing, and campaign). In addition, we further elaborate on four selected SSP to enhance the understanding of underlying mechanisms. Among other things, our findings are supposed to sensitize practitioners in regard to a broader view on social media posts. Moreover, the understanding about the five patterns of SSP may support practitioners to enhance the popularity of their future posts.