Twitter Followers and Facebook Likes are one way to assess a company’s momentum. With this in mind, we looked at all early-stage tech companies that raised funding this year between January 2014 – June 2014 and used CB Insights Performance Metrics to track their growth in Twitter followers (minimum 250 followers) and Facebook likes (minimum 500 likes) to see who some of the standouts might be.
We also looked at each company’s use and popularity on each of these platforms (their tweets and Facebook posts/mentions) to see if their activity had a relationship between growth. For series A and beyond investors, the growth in these social signals may be one trigger to take a look at these companies.
If You Can Company, an ed-tech company that raised $6.5M from Founders Fund, Greylock Partners, Floodgate, and more in February saw the greatest growth of Twitter followers this summer, picking up over 5000 new followers since June 1. Interestingly enough, it seems that tweet volume did not directly correlate with follower growth, i.e. being a prodigious tweeter doesn’t necessarily help attract followers. By way of example, CoSchedule led all eligible companies in tweets this Summer, with over 7000, but their followers growth was not enough to put it in the top 10. Somewhat unexpectedly, 3 of the top 10 Twitter are not consumer-focused tech companies highlighting the increased emphasis of social media across both consumer and B2B.
| Company | Twitter Handle | Followers Growth | Tweet Volume |
|---|---|---|---|
| If You Can Company | @ifyoucancompany | 1415% | <250 |
| SeeMore Interactive | @seemoreint | 1085% | 250-1000 |
| Bass Manager | @teambassmanager | 666% | <250 |
| TrueVault | @truevault | 547% | 250-1000 |
| Buzzmove | @buzzmovehq | 282% | 1000+ |
| Timeful | @timefulapp | 208% | 250-1000 |
| ShareRoot | @sharerootco | 193% | <250 |
| Options Away | @optionsaway | 193% | <250 |
| Opentopic | @opentopic | 134% | 250-1000 |
| Electric Objects | @electricobjects | 127% | 250-1000 |
*Early-stage tech companies funded 01/2014-06/2014
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Interestingly, Facebook had a completely different set of companies in terms of the top growth, with 4 of the top 10 being non-consumer. “Likes” growth percentages were lower overall versus Twitter followers. On a growth percentage basis, Elastica, which raised $6.3M from Mayfield Fund in February and which develops a security ops center for cloud apps and services, saw the largest growth of Facebook Likes this Summer, going from around 1500 to over 5000 in just 3 months. On a post volume basis, PolicyMic had the most of the top companies with over 2000 posts discussing them this Summer.
The full breakdown is below.
| Company | Likes Growth | Post Volume |
|---|---|---|
| Elastica | 268.5% | <100 |
| CourseHorse | 215.9% | 100-1000 |
| Kidizen | 212.3% | 100-1000 |
| MobileCause | 66.2% | <100 |
| UXPin | 66.1% | <100 |
| Gobble | 45.4% | <100 |
| PolicyMic | 42.5% | 1000+ |
| StackSocial | 33.9% | 100-1000 |
| Adcade | 27.8% | <100 |
| GetYourGuide | 24.5% | <100 |
*Early-stage tech companies funded 01/2014-06/2014
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