• by Gavin O'Malley  @mp_gavin, May 12, 2015

Despite continued tweaks to Facebook’s News Feed algorithms, brands appear to be faring better than ever on the social giant.

While they are posting less frequently on Facebook, top brands saw content-sharing rates among consumers increase dramatically (up 28%) during the first quarter of the year, according to a new report from social media analytics and measurement start-up Simply Measured.

This finding -- coupled with the news that the Interbrand 100 posted less but received similar levels of engagement -- signaled to Simply Measured that top brands are focusing on quality, not quantity, and more carefully considering the Facebook content they do produce.

Between the fourth quarter of 2014 and the first quarter of 2015, Interbrand 100 brands experienced a negligible engagement decrease of 0.11%. Year-over-year, engagement levels for Interbrand 100 brands are up by 43.5%.

Among Interbrand 100 brands, the media vertical (including Discovery, Disney, MTV, and Thomson-Reuters) saw the highest levels of engagement (up 15%) during the first quarter of 2015.

Photos and videos received the greatest share growth and the highest levels of engagement on Facebook, which indicates that users interact with these posts most often and most deeply. Engagement with videos was up 8% during the first quarter, with the bulk of that increase coming from a 43% increase in content shares.

During the same period, engagement with photos increased by 6%, with the bulk of that increase coming from a 53% increase in shares. Yet, engagement with status updates was down a staggering 72%, which Simply Measured attributed to brands posting fewer status updates -- 40% less than the previous quarter.

Most verticals saw a minor dip in fan growth, but business services (Accenture, IBM, Xerox) and restaurants (KFC, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks) saw minor growth, which suggested to Simply Measured that these are industries to watch for Facebook fan growth in the year to come.

Also of note, automotive brands (Audi, BMW, Chevrolet, Ford, Harley-Davidson, Honda, Hyundai, Kia, Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Porsche, Toyota, and Volkswagen) received 37% more engagement in the first quarter of the year than during the previous quarter, including 37% more comments, 30% more Likes, and 151% more shares.

Sporting-goods brands Adidas and Nike received 247% more engagement, and 451% more engagement per post in the first quarter of 2015 than in the fourth quarter of 2014.

The retail vertical (Amazon, eBay, and Ikea) and automotive vertical sent the most responses to fans during first quarter of the year.

Electronics brands (Canon, Nintendo, Panasonic, Philips, and Sony) and media brands responded the most quickly to consumer comments, indicating that these are industries that most value engaging in dialogue with their fans.

For its findings, Simply Measured looked at the Facebook activity of the Interbrand 2014 Best 100 Global Brands.

By its own count, Simply Measured said its analysis encompassed 11,522 social posts by 96 separate brands; 13,849 brand responses to 55,773 community posts; and 160,681 comments from a total of 1,172,091,468 fans.