Worldwide Social Media Benchmarks: Airlines Q2 2026

User-generated content: what’s achievable

Brands using Emplifi’s UGC solution this quarter saw:

• 19.88x increase in conversion rate
• 5.06x increase in website visits
• 1.08x increase in average order value

These figures represent the median uplift seen across Emplifi’s Brands UGC Accounts Benchmark for Q2 2026.

Organic performance: Facebook and Instagram

Interaction share by industry

On Facebook, Ecommerce accounts for 27.5% of total brand interactions — the highest share of any category. On Instagram, Ecommerce leads with 37.4% of interactions. Airlines is a smaller category on both platforms by comparison, contributing 1.1% of total Facebook brand interactions and 0.6% of total Instagram interactions this quarter.

Facebook interaction distribution (Q2 2026):

Instagram interaction distribution (Q2 2026):

Platform landscape at a glance

For Airlines Worldwide, median follower and fan counts land in a similar range across Instagram and Facebook — audience size alone doesn’t set the platforms apart this quarter. What does set them apart is activity and engagement: Instagram profiles post more often and generate meaningfully more interactions per post than Facebook pages.

Activity volume on both platforms is higher on Instagram, while user engagement on Instagram also outpaces Facebook.

Median post interactions

Median post interactions track the middle-ranked page or profile by monthly interactions — a measure of typical performance rather than outlier peaks.

Instagram median post interactions swung between roughly 250 and 310 over the past year, dipping toward the low end in the fall and again in early spring before rebounding heading into Q2 2026. Facebook held in a much narrower band of roughly 65–90 throughout the same period, and eased toward the lower end of that range by the end of the quarter.

Relative median post interactions

Relative median interactions index each platform’s performance against its own peak over the reporting period, making it easier to compare directional trends across platforms regardless of absolute scale.

By Q2 2026, Facebook’s relative median interactions had slipped to around 60% of its year-long peak — its weakest point in the period — while Instagram stayed closer to its own high, sitting at roughly 80% after touching its peak just one quarter earlier.

Median post impressions

Impressions measure how many times posts were displayed, regardless of interaction. This metric is available for both platforms and reflects reach rather than engagement.

Emplifi didn’t publish a standalone impressions trend for Airlines this quarter — some breakouts require a broader sample than this category’s Worldwide profile count supports on its own. Directionally, expect impressions to track the post-type mix, which skews toward Image and Reel content on Instagram and Status/Link content on Facebook.

Engagement rate trends

A dedicated engagement-rate trend wasn’t part of this quarter’s Airlines breakout. That said, the broader Social Media Landscape view confirms the same pattern seen across most industries: Instagram engagement running ahead of Facebook’s at the median profile level.

Best-performing post types

Facebook: Status and Link posts led organic performance this quarter — an atypical result compared to many other industries. Status updates generated a median of 96 post interactions, while Link posts reached 78.

Instagram: Image and Reel posts led organic performance. Images generated a median of 310 post interactions this quarter; Reels reached 281.

Full organic post type performance (Q2 2026):

Post type distribution trends:

On Facebook, Photo remains the dominant post format at around 45% of posts, though Reels have grown steadily — from near zero in mid-2025 to approximately 20% by Q2 2026 — while standard Video’s share has faded into the single digits. On Instagram, Reel, Image, and Carousel each account for a comparable share of posts (roughly 20–27% apiece), with Reel and Image also driving the strongest per-post performance.

Top performing pages and profiles

Facebook — top pages by total interactions (Q2 2026):

Instagram — top profiles by total interactions (Q2 2026):

Top posts this quarter

The highest-performing individual posts by interactions across Worldwide Airlines brands in Q2 2026:

Facebook:

Instagram:

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Paid performance: Facebook and Instagram ads

Where brands are spending

The majority of paid spend for Worldwide brands goes to FB feed, followed by IG feed and IG instagram reels. Spending on FB feed is 18.7 percentage points higher than on IG feed.

CPC and CPM by placement

The most cost-efficient placements for Worldwide brands this quarter:

• Lowest CPC: FB feed, FB facebook reels, and IG instagram stories
• Lowest CPM: FB feed, FB facebook reels, and IG instagram reels

CPC and CPM by placement (Q2 2026):

Click-through rate by placement

Within the Worldwide brands benchmark, FB feed leads on CTR at 1.53%, compared to FB facebook reels at 0.87%.

CTR by placement (Q2 2026):

Cost trends over time

Q2 2026 ad cost benchmarks for Worldwide:

Airlines-specific ad benchmarks weren’t broken out separately this quarter — Emplifi’s methodology falls back to the broader Worldwide ad-accounts benchmark when a region/industry combination doesn’t clear the minimum active-account threshold, which appears to be the case here. Across that Worldwide benchmark, CPC held in a tight $0.17–$0.23 band for most of the year, dipping in January–February 2026 before recovering to around $0.20–$0.21 by June. CPM followed a similar arc, sliding to roughly $1.65 in January before climbing back to about $2.10–$2.15, while CTR trended gently upward across the period, ending near 1.05–1.10%.

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