Simply Measured has a new report out evaluating the performance of the Facebook efforts from the top brands. The findings may help businesses of all sizes plan their own strategies.

What strategies have you found to work the best in recent months? Share your thoughts in the comments.

The study looked at data from 11,522 posts by 96 brands, 1,172,091,468 total fans, and 13,849 brand responses to 55,773 community posts and 160,681 comments. It focused specifically on brands from the Interbrand 2014 Best 100 Global Brands. Data is from 1/1/15 – 3/31/15.

The study found that Facebook’s recent update to Page Like counts led to a 3% decrease in fans from Q4. The brands analyzed posted 12% less in Q1 than in Q4, and remained relatively stable on engagement levels. Engagement increased significantly at 43.5% year-over-year however. On top of that, the brands observed received 28% more shares in Q1 than in Q4.

“Brands don’t need to post more to increase engagement—they just need to post more strategically,” the report says. “Expect to see a minor drop in fan count as inactive or spammy fans are weeded out. Facebook photos and videos received the greatest share growth and greatest engagement generally, indicating that Facebook users interact with these posts most often and most deeply.”

Here’s a look at engagement and fan count by vertical:

It’s worth noting that the media vertical posted most often and saw the most total engagement. This is in line with Facebook’s recommendation to publishers to post more frequently. Media properties saw a 15% engagement increase per post over the quarter.

Automotive brands also saw 37% more engagement in Q1 compared to Q4, including 37% more comments, 30% more likes, and 151% more shares.

The business services vertical led the charge by far for fan growth. Aside from this vertical and the restaurant vertical, fan growth has been abysmal.

We recently looked at how bad businesses have been at online customer service. According to the study, the retail and automotive verticals sent the most responses to fans during Q1. Electronics and media responded the most quickly.

“Links and photos dominate when it comes to overall engagement, but video and photos are the post types to keep an eye on if you want your content to spread more widely on Facebook,” the report says. “Top brands are investing less in status updates and yielding less engagement from this type of post.”

Engagement on videos was up 8% quarter over quarter with most of that coming from a 43% increase in shares. Videos were the only content type that the brands analyzed actually increased (2%). Engagement on photos also increased by 6% with most of that coming from a 53% increase in shares.

Here’s the kicker. Engagement on status updates dropped 72%. The study attributes this to brands posting fewer of them (40% less than the previous quarter).

Media brands were most successful with links as a content type.

“Retail brands have experienced lower engagement quarter-over-quarter, but higher engagement year-over-year,” the report says. “Retail brands excel with links and videos, and eBay does especially well among its peers in this vertical. This vertical responds to fans the most.”

There’s plenty more where all of this came from, especially on an vertical-by-vertical basis in the report, which you can find here.

Have you found status updates to be less effective on your own Facebook page? Let us know in the comments.

Images via Simply Measured