Regional businesses including Chipotle, Denver Museum of Nature & Science, PCL Construction and others achieved greater levels of visibility by highlighting support for frontline workers responding to coronavirus

With approximately half of all content posted in social media since March 15 related to COVID-19, today brand marketing and reputation management firm Elasticity – which in Q3 2019 opened operations in Denver – unveiled an analysis of the most engaging brands, organizations and non-profits in the metro Denver region during the pandemic.

The Elastic Insights analysis, which examined more than 100 leading metro Denver businesses, found the most effective social media content highlighted authentic acts of support for frontline workers during the pandemic.

“While there was a trickle of COVID-19 related content leading up to March 10, Governor Polis’ state of emergency declaration opened a flood of content from Denver-area businesses, each trying to raise awareness and communicate how they were responding to the emerging crisis,” according to Elasticity Partner Andrew Barnett, who led the research and analysis effort.

METHODOLOGY

• Companies, organizations and non-profits were chosen based on community involvement, revenue, consumer reach and other factors related to audience engagement through Facebook during the pandemic.
• A balanced engagement measure was created to account for differences in organizational scale and social media community sizes, examining common content themes and how audiences engaged with content through post reactions, comments and shares.
• The data was gathered leveraging Facebook’s API, pulling Facebook post data into the proprietary Elastic Insights measurement system. 
• Machine learning insights from IBM Watson’s Natural Language Understanding platform were then used by Elasticity to examine common themes across social media posts.

“What became clear was consumers are rooting for brands and organizations that are openly working to help all of us move forward during this pandemic,” said Barnett. “Outside of the political realm, everyday people were crossing party lines to help unify against an invisible force. When the dust settles, it’s a safe bet people will remember which brands chose to take seemingly genuine action during a time of crisis.”

KEY INSIGHTS

The analysis found the most engaging COVID-19-related content focused on themes of saluting frontline workers, particularly healthcare workers. Interestingly, this proved to be more engaging than brands highlighting their own charitable donations.

MOST ENGAGING CONTENT

Some of the most impactful, highly engaged posts from metro Denver businesses included:

• The Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s post about donating 90,000 Nitrile gloves, masks, Tyvek suits, booties and cleaning supplies to Kaiser Permanente Thrive.
• Molson-Coors posts about pledging $1 million to the United States Bartenders’ Guild, donating 50,000 cans of water to the Salvation Army Intermountain Division, and manufacturing hand sanitizer.
• PCL Construction’s post about donating and delivering more than 800 N95 masks to Alberta Health Services.
• Denver Health’s post thanking health care workers on the front lines by lighting up the main hospital each night.  

LEADING BRANDS

The 10 most engaging metro Denver brands and organizations included:

1. Denver Health
2. Molson-Coors
3. Chipotle
4. City and County of Denver Government
5. DaVita Kidney Care
6. Children’s Hospital Colorado
7. Denver Museum of Nature & Science*
8. The University of Colorado Denver
9. The Everett Clinic
10.  PCL Construction

For more about Elasticity’s proprietary Elasticity Insights measurement system or the methodology behind the firm’s analysis of the most engaging metro Denver brands, organizations and non-profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, contact Andrew Barnett at andrew@goelstic.com. 

*The Denver Museum of Nature & Science is an Elasticity client