Semrush Study: Super Bowl Ads Are No Longer a One-Night Event
What social engagement, search behavior, and AI-generated answers reveal about who really won the up-to-$10M ad battle
February 13, 2026
To help you sharpen your social strategy, Semrush analyzed a year’s worth of social media content on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook from the biggest tech companies.
According to the study:
· The content types with the highest engagement did not align with the types most frequently posted by tech companies
· Content type had a larger impact on engagement than posting date or time
· The most popular time and day to post was mid-week (Tuesday through Thursday) between 9am and 3pm ET—during the work day
· When viewed together, posting day and time did not have a significant impact on engagement
For this study, we focused specifically on content from official brand accounts throughout 2022. So, more recent seismic shifts—like the introduction of Threads—were not included in the data set. And because we focused specifically on tech brands, our findings may not be representative of other industries.
What Tech Brands Love to Post And What Their Audiences Actually Want
According to Semrush analysis, content type had a significant impact on post engagement. However, the most popular post types did not align with what tech companies most often posted.
On Instagram, carousel albums received the highest engagement—possibly due to the platform’s origins as an image sharing platform.
Despite their high performance, carousels were the least popular type of post, comprising only 21.1% of content. Videos were the most frequent with 41.7%, followed by single images (37.1%).
Photo posts had the highest engagement rate on both Twitter and Facebook, suggesting that audiences gravitate toward visual content regardless of platform.
But on both platforms, links were the most popular post type with tech brands, representing 45% of all tweets and 57.5% of all Facebook posts in 2022. This could be because links enable brands to create a clear CTA, and draw attention to or repurpose external content.
To maximize your social media impact, pay close attention to what your audience actually reacts to.
Posting Time Has Less Impact on Engagement
Overall, the most popular times to post (based on number of posts) was during the work day, between 9am and 3pm ET, Tuesday through Thursday.
But Semrush research found that posting day and hour had no statistically significant impact on engagement.
This may be due to the prevalence of ranking algorithms and post recommendations across all social platforms—because posts are often shown non-chronologically, time of day have less of an impact.
Instead of relying on general trends in your space, use your own analytics to identify the best time and day for your brand.
The Best Social Media Data Is Your Own
It may be tempting to rely on the broader trends within your space, but all audiences are not created equal. Your own followers have unique schedules and content preferences.
Semrush’s Social Media Toolkit can help you analyze, create, and schedule your content, and make a bigger impact with your audience—so you can rely on data specific to your brand, rather than relying on broader trends.
