Brand engagement is shaped by what people see, how often they see it and whether a brand responds. The following statistics cover consumer tolerance for social content, behaviors that trigger unfollows, shared and paid content in the purchase journey, email benchmarks and travel-and-hospitality response performance.
Contents
- Consumer tolerance and marketer alignment
- Behaviors that trigger unfollows or hiding
- Shared, organic and paid content
- Why people share brand posts
- Email engagement benchmarks
- Travel and hospitality social benchmarks
Consumer tolerance and marketer alignment
Hootsuite’s 2024 consumer research found that many people see a mismatch between the amount of brand content appearing on social media and the type of content they want. In the survey, 59% of people said there is too much brand advertising on social media, while 52% said they are exhausted by self-promotional brand content. Another 33% said they would prefer no brand content on social media at all. These figures come from Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Media Consumer Report, based on 6,026 consumers aged 18–64 in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia, surveyed in December 2023. The percentages describe reported opinions and actions, not platform-wide behavioral telemetry. (Hootsuite, “What do people really want from brands on social media?”)
The same research points toward relatability as a practical engagement requirement. In Hootsuite’s 2024 Social Trends consumer survey, 56% of consumers said brands should be more relatable, and 34% said a focus on self-promotion is a major turn-off in how they perceive brands. Yet 48% of marketers said they were still publishing product, brand updates or news multiple times a week. The consumer survey included 4,508 people, while the separate commercial survey included 4,281 marketers. (Hootsuite, “Hootsuite Unveils The Trends That Keep on Trending for Social Marketers”)
Trust also affects how audiences respond to the production method behind content. In the 2024 Social Trends consumer survey, 62% of consumers said they are less likely to engage with and trust content when they know it was created by an AI application. This is a reported consumer attitude from that survey, not a measurement of every AI-assisted post’s performance.
Marketers also reported operational and measurement challenges. Fifty-eight percent said it is difficult to keep up with the number of new social-network features, while 42% said they do not know who their real audience is or what makes them tick. Engagement was the top metric used to demonstrate social-media return on investment for 69% of respondents, but 68% of social marketers said they were concerned about the return on investment of their social activities. Together, these figures suggest that measuring engagement is common even when audience understanding and commercial confidence remain incomplete. (Hootsuite, “Hootsuite Unveils The Trends That Keep on Trending for Social Marketers”)
Behaviors that trigger unfollows or hiding
Hootsuite’s Social Media Consumer Report measured how 6,026 consumers said they responded to specific brand behaviors in December 2023. Clickbait was the strongest listed trigger: 54% associated it with unfollowing a brand and 22% with hiding the brand’s content. Inauthentic content was associated with unfollowing by 44% and hiding by 24%, while boring content was associated with unfollowing by 40% and hiding by 27%. (Hootsuite, “The Social Media Consumer Report”)
The report’s results show that repetition and provocation can also damage audience relationships. Repetitive content was associated with unfollowing by 35% and hiding by 33%. Provoking reactions to increase clicks or comments was associated with unfollowing by 39% and hiding by 24%. Excessive self-promotion was associated with unfollowing by 34% and hiding by 29%.
| Brand behavior | Associated with unfollowing | Associated with hiding |
|---|---|---|
| Clickbait | 54% | 22% |
| Inauthentic content | 44% | 24% |
| Boring content | 40% | 27% |
| Provoking reactions for clicks or comments | 39% | 24% |
| Repetitive content | 35% | 33% |
| Excessive self-promotion | 34% | 29% |
Community management behaviors matter as well. Generic or automated comments were associated with unfollowing by 32% and hiding by 27%. Not interacting with or responding to the community was associated with unfollowing by 32% and hiding by 23%. Ignoring negative or challenging comments was associated with unfollowing by 28% and hiding by 24%.
The remaining measured behaviors were lower or more mixed, but still material. Overusing memes or social trends was associated with unfollowing by 30% and hiding by 28%. Low-effort content was associated with unfollowing by 29% and hiding by 26%. Misusing slang was associated with unfollowing by 30% and hiding by 23%. Overusing emojis was associated with unfollowing by 18% and hiding by 26%. These percentages represent reported associations with actions, not causal estimates. (Hootsuite, “The Social Media Consumer Report”)
Shared, organic and paid content
The same December 2023 consumer report compared follow-up actions after people saw or shared brand content during the prior 12 months. For the report’s measured follow-up actions, the “never” response rate was 33% for paid posts, 26% for organic posts and 18% for shared posts. The “one time” response rates were 23% for paid posts, 23% for organic posts and 27% for shared posts. (Hootsuite, “The Social Media Consumer Report”)
More frequent follow-up actions were reported for shared and organic content than for paid content. The “two to five times” response rates were 30% for paid posts, 33% for organic posts and 37% for shared posts. The “more than five times” response rates were 15% for paid posts, 18% for organic posts and 18% for shared posts.
Across the report’s measure of consideration behaviors, shared brand posts reached 82% of consumers at least once in the prior year. The comparable figures were 74% for organic posts and 67% for paid posts. These are not purchase-conversion rates; they describe whether the measured consideration behaviors occurred at least once.
Why people share brand posts
Among consumers who shared a brand post, agreement with the content or perspective was the most common reported reason, at 44%. The post was informative for 29%, funny or entertaining for 27%, and reflective of personal values for 21%. A recognized influencer, celebrity or person featured in the post for 20% of those consumers. The figures come from the December 2023 Hootsuite consumer research and describe reported reasons among people who shared a brand post, rather than the entire consumer sample. (Hootsuite, “The Social Media Consumer Report”)
These results place perspective, usefulness and entertainment ahead of a purely promotional rationale. They also show that identity can be part of sharing behavior: more than one-fifth of sharers said personal values were reflected in the post, while one-fifth cited a recognized person. The source does not establish that any one content characteristic caused sharing, so these percentages are best used as audience signals when evaluating creative priorities.
Email engagement benchmarks
Mailchimp’s benchmarks, last updated in December 2023, cover campaigns sent to at least 1,000 subscribers. Across all Mailchimp users, the average email open rate was 35.63%, the average click rate was 2.62% and the average unsubscribe rate was 0.22%. Mailchimp cautions that Apple Mail Privacy Protection can affect how open rates should be interpreted. (Mailchimp, “Email Marketing Benchmarks & Industry Statistics”)
Industry averages varied across the supplied categories. Nonprofit campaigns had the highest listed open rate at 40.04%, followed by education and training at 35.64%, business and finance at 31.35% and e-commerce at 29.81%. Nonprofit campaigns also had the highest listed click rate at 3.27%, followed by education and training at 3.02%, business and finance at 2.78% and e-commerce at 1.74%.
| Industry | Open rate | Click rate | Unsubscribe rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Nonprofit | 40.04% | 3.27% | 0.18% |
| Education and training | 35.64% | 3.02% | 0.18% |
| Business and finance | 31.35% | 2.78% | 0.15% |
| E-commerce | 29.81% | 1.74% | 0.19% |
The listed unsubscribe rates were 0.15% for business and finance, 0.18% for nonprofit, 0.18% for education and training, and 0.19% for e-commerce. These are campaign averages from Mailchimp’s benchmark population, so they should be compared with campaigns using similar audience, industry and sending conditions rather than treated as a universal target.
Travel and hospitality social benchmarks
Sprout Social’s 2025 Content Benchmarks Report provides a sector-specific view based on nearly 3 billion messages from 1 million public social profiles active from February 1, 2024, through January 31, 2025. Travel and hospitality brands received an average of 127 social engagements per day, which was 52% more than the cross-industry average, and averaged 16 engagements per post. Sprout Social’s engagement definition excludes likes and reactions and includes publishing actions such as reposting or commenting. (Sprout Social, “The 2025 Content Benchmarks Report: Travel & Hospitality”)
Platform-level averages were also above the all-industry figures in the report. Travel and hospitality brands averaged 36 Facebook engagements per day versus 24 for all industries. On Instagram, the sector averaged 46 engagements per day versus 27 for all industries. These comparisons use Sprout Social’s engagement definition and measurement period.
Publishing patterns changed during the comparison period. Travel and hospitality brands’ Instagram single-image posts decreased by 9 percentage points from 2023 to 2024. In a separate 2024 content-activity comparison reported in 2025, 46% of travel and hospitality brands had TikTok accounts, compared with 32% of brands overall. The account-presence figures describe the brands covered by that analysis and are not a forecast of future adoption.
Response speed and coverage remain a clear weakness. Travel and hospitality brands responded to only 6% of messages and comments each day in 2024. In the 2024 Index research reported in 2025, 73% of social users said they would buy from a competitor if a brand did not respond on social. The 73% figure is a reported user opinion, while the 6% figure is the sector response benchmark; neither should be interpreted as a direct estimate of lost revenue. (Sprout Social, “The 2025 Content Benchmarks Report: Travel & Hospitality”)