Trick or Treat! Snickers and M&M's Scare Up Online Engagement on Social Media

TORONTO, ON--(Marketwired - Oct 29, 2015) - Today, technology and data company Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL), creator of the eValue™ score, released rankings of the top chocolate candy brands on Facebook and Twitter.

This year, it's estimated that U.S. sales for Halloween candy will be $2.6 billion, with 70% of Americans stating chocolate as their preferred holiday treat. Based on Engagement Labs data, it is clear that the chocolate candy industry utilizes social media channels to increase brand awareness and sales, especially during this time of year.

Top Ten Candy Brands on Facebook and Twitter
Ranking	Facebook	Twitter
1	SNICKERS	M&M's
2	BUTTERFINGER	KitKat
3	Reese's Peanut Butter Cups	Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
4	Cadbury	Toblerone
5	M&M's	TWIX
6	Lindt Chocolate	Cadbury
7	Hershey's Kisses	Lindt Chocolate
8	Toblerone	SNICKERS
9	TWIX	Hershey's Kisses
10	KitKat	BUTTERFINGER
Source: Engagement Labs eValue™ 2015 rankings of Chocolate Candy brands

"Halloween provides chocolate and candy brands a major opportunity to reach a wide variety of audiences," said Bryan Segal, CEO of Engagement Labs. "Affiliation with widely-recognized holidays only helps to improve a brand's awareness among fans and stay top-of-mind for consumers when they purchase their treat of choice."

Snickers, a Mars candy brand, was the top performing chocolate candy brand on Facebook, scoring the highest among all brands when it comes to Engagement and ranked the second highest with respect to Impact. Making the most of their product's association with Halloween, the brand has posted Halloween-themed content incorporating their branding to count down the days to the holiday. Boasting the highest number of likes and comments, the brand's Halloween-themed content resonated well with audiences.

On Twitter, M&M's, another Mars brand, scored the top spot, while popular Hershey brand, KitKat placed a close second with the highest follower growth and the highest Responsiveness subscore. KitKat's impressive response strategy, replying directly to followers and retweeting entertaining follower content, helped the brand resonate with consumers and build brand affinity.

"We found that the brands are creating a higher Impact on Facebook and have higher Engagement on Twitter, while Responsiveness, for the most part, lacks across both channels," continued Segal. "Leveraging association with upcoming events and holidays can initially engage an audience, but it's how the brand continues to interact with followers that keeps them continually invested. If chocolate candy brands are aiming to drive sales, they need to focus on standing out from competitors through the creation of interesting content and execution quick, authentic response strategies."

Similar to KitKat, fellow Hershey's product Reese's Peanut Butter Cups managed to secure third place for both Facebook and Twitter. The brand scored the highest for Impact on Facebook and above average for both Engagement and Impact on Twitter.

Meanwhile, Nestlé's Butterfinger placed second on Facebook and had the second highest Engagement and Responsiveness scores. Butterfinger also had the highest likes and shares per 1000 fans.

 About Engagement Labs

Engagement Labs (TSX VENTURE: EL) offers intelligent 'Total Social' data, analytics and insights for marketers and organizations enabling them to track, measure and benchmark the conversations happening around their brand or industry both online and offline. These conversations are proven to drive critical business outcomes, including sales, while Engagement Labs' tools provide data and actionable insight to help guide business decisions and power marketing effectiveness.

Engagement Labs' eValue™ Analytics tool is the global benchmark for social media scoring. eValue's proprietary data technology offers real-time analysis to measure a brand's social media and digital marketing efforts, distilling it down to a single meaningful number between 0 and 100 -- an eValue score. Composed of a series of metrics and Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), an eValue score measures social media Engagement, Impact and Responsiveness which is benchmarked against 100,000+ handpicked and verified brands. The Keller Fay Group, an Engagement Labs company, is the only firm to regularly measure offline conversation, which independent research finds is a significant driver of sales with twice the impact of online conversation.

Engagement Labs maintains offices in Toronto, London and New Brunswick, NJ. www.engagementlabs.com / www.kellerfay.com