If there’s one artist intertwined with the growth of social media, it’s probably Taylor Swift. Her first album was released in 2006, the same year Twitter was founded and Facebook opened to the public.

As social media became ubiquitous in our lives, so did Taylor. She was part of the first generation to grow up using social media, and was an early adapter at using social media to build a relationship with her audience.

So what’s the state of Taylor Swift’s social media presence in 2023? Here are the things she’s been doing right, where there’s room for improvement, and what marketers can learn.

Insight #1. Taylor has never been more popular

The number of followers for Taylor Swift by social media platform on June 6, 2023.

Swift currently has 530 million followers on social media, adding 58 million new followers in 2022 alone.

After an initial peak on Twitter in 2014 around the 1989 album, there was a sharp drop in Tweets discussing Swift between 2016 - 2018. That was the period of her Reputation album, which she refused to do press interviews for.

Tweets mentioning "Taylor Swift", the Twitter handle @taylorswift, or the hashtag #TaylorSwift between 2009 - 2022. Data pulled from the ListenFirst platform.

Since then, she becomes more discussed each year including a record 40 million Tweets mentioning her in 2022.

Insight #2. Her Most Popular Topic Is The Eras Tour

13 of the top 20 performing posts by Taylor Swift in the last year, were about the Eras tour. The typical formula is Swift posts on Instagram, “these shows in (fill-in-the-blank city) have been amazing! Here’s an album of pictures showing the performance.”

Following the same playbook, any performer selling out stadiums for multiple nights can expect similar social media success, so you’re welcome only Paul McCartney.

Insight #3. Female Friendship Is A Big Part Of Her Appeal On Social Media

Swift’s top performing post, all-time, is a TikTok video where she proclaims her bestie, Selena Gomez is a bad bitch. Meanwhile, a TikTok video of Swift wearing the same outfit as Haim got 7.6 million engagements.

In the context of parasocial relationships, fans love seeing Taylor hanging out with other famous women, and that post type is a consistent winner for Swift.

Insight #4. Maybe All Her Album’s Need To Be Labeled “Taylor’s Version”

Swift’s top performing post in the last year was an Instagram gallery announcing the release date for the re-recorded version of her Speak Now album. In comparison, her Instagram post announcing Midnights, an album of completely new songs, got 21 percent less engagements.

Considering Speak Now has been available for 12 years, the excitement is a little bit confusing but a couple of things are going on. The massive success of the 10 minute version of All Too Well dramatically raised the ceiling for the cultural impact of these re-recorded albums.

The bigger reason however is Swifties know how important the “Taylor’s Version” project is Swift, and understand her anger over Scooter Braun buying the masters to her first 6 albums. The narrative of Swift taking back what’s hers is what fans are supporting as much as the music.

Insight #5. Less Is More In Terms Of Pop Stars Posting

Pop stars averaging the most engagements per social media post, between June 2022 - May, 2023. Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and Tumblr are the platforms being measured.

I looked up the social media performance of 30 of the biggest pop stars in the world, and Taylor averaged the 5th most engagements per post. The biggest takeaway from the content of those artists is if you want to optimize for audience engagement, there are diminishing returns if you post more than 300 times a year.

Number of social media post by pop stars in the last year — The number of social media posts top performing pop stars shared between June 2022 - May 2023. Data pulled form the ListenFirst platform.

For example, Bad Bunny averaged over 3 million engagements per post and only posted 41 times in the last year. He has an insanely high 8.7% response rate for his posts. On the other end of the spectrum, Nicki Minaj shared 1,452 posts in the last 12 months, and her posts had an anemic 0.2% response rate.

For her part, Swift has drastically cut back on the amount of social media posts she shares. She only posted 133 times in 2022 compared to 1,350 posts in 2015.

Insight #6. Taylor Might Want To Ditch Lyric Videos

Swift posted 21 lyric videos on YouTube in the last 12 months, and they received 89% less engagements than her posts normally average.

Lyric videos are always going to underperform compared to full blown music videos, but they only average 183,801 engagements compared Swift posts in general averaging 1,647,760 engagements. The effort would be better spent creating other types of content for social media.

Insight #7. Swift Should Post On TikTok More Often

By percentage, The amount of social media engagements on Taylor Swift’s social media posts by platform, between June 2022 - May 2023.

In the last 12 months, 64% of the engagement around Taylor Swift's posts happened on Instagram, with 17% of engagements on TikTok, and 9% on YouTube. Instagram is clearly Swift’s most important social network and her posts there average 4.7 million engagements.

The average amount of social media engagements on Taylor Swift’s social media posts by platform, between June 2022 - May 2023.

However, TikTok is her most under-utlized platform. She posted there just 28 times in the last 12 months despite averaging 2.1 million engagements per post.

Conclusion

Even for someone as successful as Taylor Swift, there are ways to improve your social media content by analyzing past performance. Additionally, for marketers working with artists or influencers, auditing their social media content helps you better evaluate their strengths and weaknesses around partnership opportunities.

The answers are out there, you just need to look at the data.

What Taylor Swift Can Teach Marketers About Social Media