Pull up a dog bed and a stack of treats to mull over our first-ever Top Pet Brands on Social Media report with your favorite furry friend!
From creative campaigns to more community management than your dog can shake a stick at, pet brands have a whole lot to be proud of on social this year. We looked at who’s outbarking the competition on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and Twitter for the definitive round-up of all things pet brand social media. We’ve got all the metrics you care about from engagement to posts per week, plus oodles of content inspo from top-performing campaigns.
See how your pet brand is doing on social
Download the full reportTop Overall Pet Brands on Social Media
The Farmer’s Dog grabbed the overall gold this year thanks to stellar finishes across all four channels we studied. BarkBox and Chewy.com snagged the silver and bronze respectively and will no doubt be hot on The Farmer’s Dog’s heels next year.
Overall Rank | Pet Brand | Rank | Rank | Rank | Rank |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | The Farmer’s Dog | 15 | 6 | 11 | 2 |
2 | BarkBox | 2 | 3 | 23 | 9 |
3 | Chewy | 32 | 12 | 15 | 4 |
4 | Litter Robot | 16 | 24 | 9 | 15 |
5 | Redbarn Pet Products | 20 | 17 | 26 | 13 |
6 | Outward Hound | 23 | 35 | 20 | 7 |
7 | Bullymake | 5 | 44 | 29 | 10 |
8 | CatIt | 51 | 15 | 25 | 5 |
8 | Stella & Chewy’s | 9 | 19 | 11 | 57 |
10 | Blue Buffalo | 35 | 31 | 35 | 3 |
Litter-Robot, Redbarn Pet Products, and Outward Hound finished just outside the winner’s podium, with Bullymake, Stella and Chewy’s, CatIt, and Blue Buffalo rounding out the overall top 10.
Top Pet Brand on Social Media: The Farmer’s Dog
What made human-grade dog food brand The Farmer’s Dog stand out from the rest? With top 10 finishes on Twitter and TikTok and top 15 ranks on Instagram and Facebook, the brand has clearly cracked the pet brand social media code. The Farmer’s Dog invested a bunch in its online presence this year with everything from a breakneck posting frequency to a super successful Super Bowl spot that it made the most of during and way after football season.
The Farmer’s Dog made so much hay on social about its heartwarming Super Bowl commercial this year, with engaging reposts across Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. In this Reel version of the commercial, followers lapped up the touching commercial about extending the all-too-short time we get with our pets to the tune of a 12.7% engagement rate by follower, 34K engagements, and more than 661K estimated impressions. Big-budget content like this definitely helped the brand reach new heights on social, but the Farmer’s Dog earned 2.5x the engagements of their average pet brand competitor thanks in part to being nearly twice as active as other pet brands on Instagram.
The Farmer’s Dog was more likely to post a photo on Facebook than any other post type by a mile, and this post about dog tattoos was their most engaging photo of the year by rate. Every pet owner knows how precious toe beans and snoots can be, so this user-generated content (UGC) post grabbed attention and got followers sharing their own ink tributes to their beloved pets. The post earned a 1.54% engagement rate and more than 165K estimated impressions, helping The Farmer’s Dog maintain an engagement rate about 35% stronger than its average competitor on Facebook.
If you’ve been on the internet in the last five years, you’ve more than likely heard of cult favorite social account We Rate Dogs, which offers humorous and oh-so-memorable “ratings” of people’s pets. The Farmer’s Dog teamed up with We Rate Dogs for an adorable commercial which excited followers to the tune of a 40.2% engagement rate and more than 554K impressions. Collabs are a strong strategy in nearly every industry, but the top pet brands we studied had a lot to show for picking the right brand to partner with, especially when pairing the partnership with inventive content.
The Farmer’s Dog was extremely active on Twitter, with 4x the tweets per week as the average pet brand. The vast majority of these are replies, indicating a really active community engagement strategy. The brand rocked 5x the engagement total and 41x the engagement rate on Twitter compared to its average competitor thanks in part to successful content like this video.
Speaking of big-name pet brand partnerships, this TikTok video from beloved dog influencer @AGuyAndHisGolden made big waves as a repost on The Farmer’s Dog account. The repost rocked a 5.03% engagement rate by view, more than 95K engagements, and nearly 2 million (!) views thanks to an adorable (if a little weird) golden retriever’s love affair with his toy. UGC is a strong strategy for any pet brand on social media, and the viral reach of this video definitely backs up The Farmer’s Dog’s decision to bet big on a behind-the-scenes partnership with A Guy and His Golden.
The Farmer’s Dog has 6.5x the followers of their average pet brand competitor on TikTok, suggesting strong investment on this channel. That investment is definitely paying off with 2x the engagement total and 3x the engagement rate by view of the average pet brand.
Top Pet Brand Trend 1: Dog and cat memes
It seems like every pet brand on social this year used memes as part of its strategy, and with many meme posts topping the engagement charts, we’re not complaining.
Memes are popular for a reason: they’re easily shareable and even easier to giggle at. Spot & Tango boasted the top four Instagram posts by engagement rate this year, and three of four were memes in the brand’s signature blue. The photo post earned a 291% engagement rate and more than 3 million estimated impressions from pet lovers who can relate to the desire to share memes with their furry friends.
Of course, memes are popular with pet brand content creators too because they’re way less work to put together than, say, a studio-shot video with a camera-shy pup.
Taste of the Wild ranked first on Twitter and 13th overall thanks in part to the success of meme tweets like this one about substituting fur babies for real ones. The tweet rocked a 43.8% engagement rate with nothing more than a simple meme branded with Taste of the Wild’s logo. Memes that last are scannable and relatable, and Taste of the Wild was one of the most successful pet brands on social this year at finding ones that would resonate with their audience of pet lovers.
Top Pet Brand Trend 2: Macro- and micro-influencer partnerships
Pet brands made the most of partnerships and collabs this year with a strong mix of human and pet celebs. From reposts to contests to original content, partnership posts topped the charts for pet brands on social media.
Meow Mix is known for its earworm jingles, so a collab with NSYNC band member JC Chasez feels almost inevitable. Meow Mix ranked 20th on TikTok and 14th overall thanks in part to this campaign, which encouraged fans to duet with JC to create the next big Meow Mix single. Just five posts featuring Chasez and more than a few dancing cats earned Meow Mix an eye-popping 500 million views, not to mention tons of repostable UGC they could use on their channel. The partnership can’t have been cheap, but with numbers like that, it certainly seems like it paid off.
Pet brands, don’t sleep on more niche brand partnerships or even reposts from accounts you know your followers will love. Oxbow Animal Health ranked 18th overall and 13th on Facebook thanks to the success of videos like this featuring beloved bunny TikTok account @JoJosBunBuns. The bunny account is a perfect fit for Oxbow, which focuses on food and gear for smaller pets. The humorous “day in the life” video took off on Facebook for the brand with a 13.4% engagement rate and nearly 1.5 million estimated impressions. Bunny content won’t be relevant to every pet brand in our study, but the video reminds us that finding your content niche is the ultimate way to reach your followers on social.
Top Pet Brand Trend 3: User-generated content
User-generated content is a social media marketer’s favorite strategy because it combines already-vetted content with freedom from having to produce something from scratch. UGC was a popular strategy for pet brands on social media this year and led to a 1.43% engagement rate lift on Instagram alone, with extra bonus points for particularly heartfelt or tear-jerking content.
Instagram Reels were a great way for pet brands to show off relatable (if weird) behavior from pets all across the world. Second-place pet brand BarkBox found a ton of success with this strategy on social, including this goofy video of dogs at their weirdest right before company comes over. The Reel rocked a 41.2% engagement rate and nearly 13 million estimated impressions. UGC when done right can feel more authentic and resonant with users than a highly-produced ode to pet ownership, and is a key tool in the toolbox of any pet brand on social media this year.
The only thing better than a weird pet behavior repost is UGC that encourages other pet brands to post their pets online like this Facebook post from Diamond Pet Foods which ranked 4th on Facebook this year. This simple photo post earned an amazing 37.5% engagement rate by asking pet owners to share their best nap photos, and Diamond’s community turned out. The comments section is filled with adorable photos and odes to sleepy pets. Is there anything more wholesome?
Top Pet Brands on Instagram
Congratulations to Spot & Tango for grabbing the Instagram gold this year, narrowly beating out BarkBox and Honest Kitchen for the top of the winner’s podium. Kinship, Bullymake, and Pet Meds barely missed the top three, and Oxbow, Pooch Perks, Stella and Chewy’s, and Tiki Pets rounded out the pet brands top 10 on Instagram.
Rank | Pet Brand | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Spot & Tango | 1,064,434 | 4.33% |
2 | BarkBox | 5,012,176 | 1.58% |
3 | Honest Kitchen | 255,588 | 1.11% |
4 | Kinship | 1,332,719 | 0.69% |
5 | Bullymake | 499,655 | 0.63% |
6 | 1800PetMeds | 83,341 | 1.38% |
7 | Oxbow | 50,888 | 0.88% |
8 | Pooch Perks | 38,490 | 0.66% |
9 | Stella & Chewy’s | 240,937 | 0.40% |
10 | Tiki Pets | 27,148 | 0.95% |
Pet brands earned a median engagement rate of 0.33% on Instagram this year, which is a little below the all-industry average of 0.43% we saw in our Social Media Industry Benchmark Report. Pet brands also posted about half as often as the median brand in that report at 2.5 posts per week.
Featured brand: Bullymake
How did dog subscription box brand Bullymake snag 5th place on Instagram and 7th overall in our rankings? Twice the Instagram followers of their average competitor definitely helped, as did posting twice as often. Combine those stats with more funny dog memes than Fido could shake a stick at and you’ve got a foolproof formula for earning 5x the engagement total and about 20% more engagement by rate than its average pet brand competitor.
Bullymake’s repost of a short and sweet dog comic by illustrator Becky Barnicoat went seriously viral among dog owners who totally grokked how different our dogs look without their collars. The post earned an eye-popping 49.5% engagement rate by follower and more than 2 million estimated impressions, indicating the photo post traveled even further than Bullymake’s impressive follower list. Any brand can repost UGC, but selecting content that’ll truly resonate with followers is the art of good social media content, and Bullymake has it down.
Heartfelt, tear-jerking content like this post about service dogs on September 11th performed really well with BullyMake’s audience this year. This UGC Reel memorialized the heroic sacrifice of pups who searched for survivors and resonated with followers to the tune of a 3.94% engagement rate, which is about 6x Bullymake’s already impressive average engagement rate. Bullymake deftly strikes a balance between playful and more serious content to maintain a cohesive Instagram feed.
This goofy Reel that’s oh-so-relatable for dog owners earned more than 8.6K engagements and more than 152K estimated impressions. The Reel features a “velcro dog” (IYKYK) and his beleaguered owner trying and failing to spend time on his phone while slowly losing all sense of personal space. The Reel rocked because of a universal dog owner experience and didn’t need any fancy lighting or equipment to shine with followers. Bullymake did a great job of finding simple but relatable user-generated content to serve its Instagram followers, who ate it up on the reg.
Top Pet Brands on TikTok
Pet lifestyle brand Kinship rocked first place on TikTok this year, edging out Spot & Tango for the gold. BarkBox and The Farmer’s Dog were the only overall top 10 finishers in the TikTok top 10, with Frenchie Bulldog, Wellness Pet Food, PetSmart, Solid Gold Pet Nutrition, Nulo, and Ruffwear standing out on TikTok but not performing well enough on other channels to rank competitively overall.
Rank | Pet Brand | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by View* |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Kinship | 976,178 | 13.07% |
2 | Spot & Tango | 364,119 | 9.26% |
3 | BarkBox | 376,012 | 8.14% |
4 | Frenchie Bulldog | 133,599 | 8.03% |
5 | Wellness Pet Food | 1,413,567 | 4.02% |
6 | The Farmer’s Dog | 181,480 | 6.10% |
7 | PetSmart | 1,251,684 | 3.62% |
8 | Solid Gold Pet Nutrition | 72,303 | 7.58% |
9 | Nulo | 30,819 | 24.51% |
10 | Ruffwear | 143,988 | 5.03% |
Pet brands earned a median engagement rate by view of 2.8% on TikTok this year, which is nothing to sneeze at. These brands posted videos just under once per week on TikTok, which definitely has some room for improvement.
Featured brand: BarkBox
BarkBox was just one of two brands from our overall top 10 that also had a dynamite finish on TikTok — we 💜 brands that have cracked the code on multiple channels. The pet gear subscription brand had plenty of personality on TikTok to grab attention and engagement from viewers. Posting about twice as often as their average competitor also helped the brand’s engagement skyrocket this year to nearly 5x the engagement total and 4x the engagement rate by view of its average competitor. Posting often helped BarkBox snag more bites at the engagement apple, and the brand really stepped up its posting after an epic summer of engagement.
Sharp-eyed readers might be wondering how BarkBox ranked so highly while actually earning about half the views of its average competitor. The tl;dr is that social media success is a blend of engagement rate, engagement total, views, comments, shares, and so much more. Sure, earning fewer views than your competitors is a bummer, but what’s a view worth if it doesn’t come with an engagement? BarkBox was four times more likely to garner a like or a share for every view its earned compared to their average competitor, which is a sure sign of the quality of their content.
Like many pet brands we studied, BarkBox leaned hard into UGC this year. This photo carousel post featuring an adorable weiner dog named Leroy and his outfits earned an unbelievable 20% engagement rate by view and more than 800K views, not to mention 166K engagements. Leaning on carousels like this one to share photos or even posts from other channels with TikTok followers is a great way to repurpose content to get more bang for your buck.
The brand also employed the sneaky strategy of encouraging people to stay until the end of a carousel or video in the caption. BarkBox used this caption strategy in a few of their top videos to boost the reach of their posts, and it’s very safe to say it was successful.
Influencer partnerships are a tried and true strategy for social media engagement, and this post featuring TikTok’s own Noodle has to be one of the most successful examples of a killer partnership in recent memory. The elderly pug went viral back in 2021 for predicting Bones/No Bones Days, which is the simplest possible fortune telling about whether you should stay in your (dog) bed or go out and see the world. Reposting his owner’s journey of inking Noodle’s adorable mug on his arm for BarkBox’s National Dog Day tattoo campaign resonated strongly with fans to the tune of a 10.7% engagement rate by view, which is more than 3x the pet brand median.
BarkBox has had success with this campaign multiple years running, but partnerships and posts like this help its message soar far beyond their impressive follower list. Picking the right influencer to collab with works well in every industry, and pet brands and famous pups are no exception.
The BarkBox team wasn’t afraid of a little behind-the-scenes fun, and many of the brand’s top TikToks featured quick shots of BarkBox office life, like this video about the team’s supposed big ideas for a new line of Pride-themed toys. The video features more than a little sass with some NSFW toy ideas and had viewers laughing and cheering in the comments to the tune of an 8.73% engagement rate by view and more than 122K views. Viewers loved the snark and the LGBTQ-positive message of the video, reminding pet brands that it’s okay to live your values and have a little fun along the way.
Top Pet Brands on Facebook
We’re raising a glass to pet gear brand Kurgo for its top finish on Facebook this year, and Fromm Family Foods and PetSafe for its respective silver and bronze medals. Taste of the Wild, Ziwi, and Litter-Robot used their impressive Facebook ranks to finish strong in our overall top 20, while Diamond Pet Foods, NutriSource Pet Foods, NaturVet, and Sleepypod stood out on Facebook but struggled a little more on other channels.
Rank | Pet Brand | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Kurgo | 536,334 | 7.23% |
2 | Fromm Family Foods | 369,209 | 2.86% |
3 | PetSafe | 481,089 | 1.10% |
4 | Diamond Pet Foods | 352,862 | 1.87% |
5 | NutriSource Pet Foods | 144,364 | 3.53% |
6 | Taste of the Wild | 290,292 | 0.84% |
7 | Ziwi | 156,593 | 1.21% |
8 | NaturVet | 180,013 | 0.63% |
9 | Litter Robot | 99,156 | 0.45% |
10 | Sleepypod | 42,849 | 2.15% |
Pet brands earned a median engagement rate of 0.04% on Facebook and posted just over twice per week, which is only a little less frequently than it posted on Instagram and way more often than it did on TikTok or Twitter.
Featured brand: Litter-Robot
If you have or know an animal in your life, you’ve probably heard of self-cleaning litterbox company Litter-Robot thanks to its ubiquitous ads. The company has worked hard to build its presence online between heavy social investment, creative ads, and an influencer program, all of which helped the brand skyrocket to 4th overall in our rankings and 9th on Facebook.
Litter-Robot rocked more than 2x the engagement total, and a 50% higher engagement rate than its average competitor on Facebook this year. With just a third of the Facebook followers of its average competitor, Litter-Robot’s impressive engagement tells us they’re making the most of the attention from every one. The brand also posts just as often as the average pet brand.
Litter-Robot wasn’t afraid to get a little funky on social like in this out-of-this-world Facebook video featuring a cat entering a psychedelic new dimension via its litterbox. The groovy video went seriously viral to the tune of a 23.6% engagement rate and more than 1.83 million views. Fans raced to the comments to talk about how much their cats love using the Litter-Robot and to giggle about the brand’s playful video. The video delivers info on the product’s key features while also emphasizing the true promise of their brand: kitty nirvana.
Many of Litter-Robot’s top posts by engagement rate were videos, which had 10x the engagement of other posts for the brand. The brand is investing heavily in this post type and has the engagement rates to back up their strategic decision to do so.
The brand was all about celeb endorsements, with several of their top posts by engagement rate featuring everyone from Jenna Fischer to Ted Allen to YouTube influencers. Hearing your favorite TV star endorse a product can go a long way to establishing trust with a brand you maybe haven’t heard of, and Litter-Robot put serious effort (and likely $$$) behind securing and posting about these endorsements. This video post had just 3.26K engagements but more than a million video views, suggesting that Litter-Robot also employed boosting to make sure the post reached fans of The Office far beyond their follower count.
Litter-Robot kept its ear to the ground about trending content across its channels and took care to emulate some of social media’s biggest trends of the year. This video features a day in the life video of adorable black cat Bali narrated in the Trickster voice, which was a hugely popular voice effect on TikTok last year. Bali’s narration is fun and funny, and focuses on how thrilled she is about getting to use a Litter-Robot. Many of the brand’s top posts focus on how their product benefits both owners and pets themselves by pulling at pet owner’s heartstrings, showing how happy their cats will be thanks to Litter-Robot. Every pet brand needs to separate itself from their competitors by demonstrating clearly how their product works, but Litter-Robot was one of the most successful at going beyond the feature to focus on the true benefit their product provides.
How does your pet brand stack up?
Download the full reportTop Pet Brands on Twitter
Okay, hear us out: you might be wondering if Twitter is even relevant for pet brands in 2024 since the median engagement rate is 0.0% and the median tweets posted per week is…also 0.0. Does that mean not a single pet brand invested in Twitter this year? No, but it does mean that more than half of the brands we studied were putting their social media content energy elsewhere. As we’ll see in the top 10 Twitter rankings below, Twitter is still very much alive and well for the top pet brands on social media this year, so let’s focus on pet brands that are using Twitter to connect with their followers and customers.
Rank | Pet Brand | Total Engagement | Eng. Rate by Follower |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Taste of the Wild | 69,372 | 5.19% |
2 | The Farmer’s Dog | 10,190 | 7.45% |
3 | Blue Buffalo | 64,722 | 2.08% |
4 | Chewy | 22,586 | 0.13% |
5 | CatIt | 1,620 | 0.10% |
6 | NaturVet | 520 | 0.73% |
7 | Outward Hound | 489 | 0.14% |
8 | Ziwi | 284 | 0.34% |
9 | BarkBox | 2,814 | 0.02% |
10 | Bullymake | 1,153 | 0.06% |
There’s a metric ton of overlap between the overall top 10 rankings and the Twitter top 10 rankings, with seven of our top 10 overall winners also topping the charts on Twitter. Taste of the Wild came in first this year, with The Farmer’s Dog and Blue Buffalo close behind. Chewy.com, CatIt, Outward Hound, BarkBox, and Bullymake all used top 10 Twitter finishes to skyrocket in our overall rankings, while NaturVet and Ziwi stood out on Twitter but didn’t quite make the cut across every channel we studied.
Featured brand: Blue Buffalo
Blue Buffalo has a lot to brag about this year, with a 10th place finish overall thanks in part to their highest-ranking channel, Twitter. Funny memes and drool-worthy giveaways helped catapult the brand to success, as did an absolutely die-hard community management strategy. Blue Buffalo tweeted 9x as often as the average pet brand, and with the vast majority of those tweets being reply tweets, it’s easy to see the brand is dedicated to robust convos and community management on Twitter. This strategy is definitely paying off, since the brand is rocking 64x the engagement total and 9x the engagement rate of the average pet brand.
Photo tweets+pet memes=a match made in heaven for Blue Buffalo, and many other pet brands this year. Pet brands are all about combing the web for trending memes and serving them up to their pet-loving followers, like this tweet about a sassy cat with a thousand-yard stare. The simple tweet rocked an impressive 20.1% engagement rate by follower and performed about 10x better than Blue Buffalo’s average engagement rate this year. Photo tweets averaged a 2.19% engagement rate for Blue Buffalo this year, which is, well, a lot more than the industry average of 0.0% engagement rate.
Contest and giveaway posts performed well for the brand on Twitter to the tune of a 2.37x engagement rate lift over their average tweet. Blue Buffalo held giveaways regularly on Twitter this year, with its most dedicated and effective giveaway campaign taking place leading up to the holidays. The adorable photo tweet earned an 8.4% engagement rate and 500 (!) comments from followers excited about winning a cozy hoodie complete with a kitty pouch. The success of this tweet reminds us that giveaways don’t have to be over-the-top to be effective, so grab some swag or industry-related merch and get givin’.
We’ve gotta give it up to Blue Buffalo’s community manager featured in this tweet, who must be glued to her phone to pull off the kind of reply pace we see from the brand. The brand replies to nearly every conversation started by fans online, especially on tweets that are performing well. This strategy requires a ton of person power but can really pay off by effectively doubling the number of comments on a post. It also taps into Twitter’s OG purpose, which was one-to-one convos between everybody on the internet, very much including brands. Not every pet brand has the bandwidth to approach community management this way, but connecting with your community can be a great way to cement your position on a social channel, particularly conversation-friendly Twitter.
Check out the latest Social Media Industry Benchmark Report for even more benchmarks.
View the report nowHow is my Pet Brand Performing on Social Media?
Comparing your pet brand’s social performance has never been easier. Browse our pet brand live benchmarks for a real-time look at a selection of top pet brand posts, engagement rates, high-performing hashtags, and tons more. You can even add these benchmarks directly into your Rival IQ account for always-on monitoring of these top brands.
Methodology
We surveyed pet brands on social media between January 1, 2023 and December 31, 2023 on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and Twitter. Using this data and a weighted formula, we generated an overall engagement ranking for each pet brand. The top-ranked brands on social media have high engagement rates with average or better audience size and posting volumes.
We define engagement as measurable interaction on social media posts, including likes, comments, favorites, retweets, shares, and reactions. We used engagement rate by follower to measure engagement on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, which is defined as the total engagement divided by the number of followers. We used engagement rate by view to measure engagement on TikTok, which is defined as the total engagement divided by the number of views.
The Case for Benchmarking
Why benchmark instead of just measuring how your pet brand’s individual performance changes over time? Because social success is relative. Benchmarking means figuring out what’s working (and what isn’t) in your industry and measuring your success against that.
It’s crucial to go beyond likes and favorites because audience size is hugely important: 100 likes is great engagement for a pet brand with 1,000 followers but is a drop in the bucket to a pet brand with 100,000 followers. Engagement rate helps us take audience size into account to see who’s really reaching the highest percentage of their fans and followers with their social posts, which are the pet brands you need to beat.
Wrapping It Up
We hope all the pet lovers out there enjoyed this report as much as we did. It was a great year for pet brands on social media, and all the brands we studied have a lot to be proud of. We can’t wait to see what pet brands get up to on social media in the year ahead!
By the way, if you need even more competitive analytics, you can go head-to-head with a free report on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter to see how you stack up against your top competition. See what makes your competitors tick with key insights and actionable advice you can start using now to come out on top.
Want to continue the pet brand conversation or share photos of your favorite furry friend? Don’t hesitate to reach out to us on Twitter!
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