Middle East Markets Social Media Benchmarks: Beverages Q2 2026

What’s in this report

In Q2 2026, Beverages brands in Middle East Markets saw median post engagement rates of around 4% on Instagram, well ahead of Facebook’s roughly 1%. Retail led interaction share on both platforms, with Beverages capturing a modest 3.5% of Facebook interactions and 1.8% on Instagram. Reel and Carousel content led organic performance on Instagram, while Reel and Photo posts were the top organic performers on Facebook.

This quarterly benchmarks report pulls from Emplifi’s dataset of 65 Facebook pages and 68 Instagram profiles across Middle East Markets, covering April 1, 2026 through June 30, 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, Retail accounts for 20.8% of total brand interactions — the highest share of any category. On Instagram, Retail leads with 20.7% of interactions. Beverages itself accounts for 3.5% of total Facebook brand interactions and 1.8% of Instagram interactions in Middle East Markets — well outside the top 5 categories.

Facebook interaction distribution (Q2 2026):

Instagram interaction distribution (Q2 2026):

Platform landscape at a glance

In Middle East Markets, Instagram Beverages profiles carry a lower median follower count than Facebook pages carry in fans. The chart behind this comparison doesn’t print exact figures — Emplifi represents relative scale as sized bubbles rather than labeled values — so the figures below are described directionally rather than as precise medians.

Activity volume on both platforms is roughly comparable, while user engagement on Instagram 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 have held in the high-teens-to-mid-20s range for the past year, dipping to around 18–20 at a couple of points (July 2025, February 2026) before recovering to around 25 by June 2026. Facebook held much lower and flatter throughout, mostly in the 6–10 range with no clear trend.

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 June 2026, Instagram’s relative median interactions sat at around 94% of its own peak, close to its high point for the period. Facebook was more volatile, spiking to 100% of its peak in August 2025 before ending the period around 59% — its lowest point since spring 2025.

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.

Note: Emplifi’s Middle East Markets Beverages sample did not clear the threshold required for this specific chart, so the deck substitutes a Worldwide Beverages benchmark (3,674 Facebook pages and 1,820 Instagram profiles) for median post impressions and engagement rate. The figures below reflect Worldwide Beverages performance, not Middle East Markets specifically.

Facebook impressions peaked around 3,300 in July 2025 before declining with periodic spikes (notably back up to roughly 2,300 in December 2025 and March 2026), ending near 1,300 in June 2026. Instagram impressions climbed early, peaked near 2,800 around September 2025, then declined steadily to approximately 950 by the end of the period.

Engagement rate trends

Median post engagement rates this quarter (Worldwide Beverages benchmark — see impressions note above regarding sample threshold):

• Instagram: ~4.05%
• Facebook: ~1.35%

Instagram engagement climbed gradually through the back half of the period, ending near its highest point of the year at around 4.05%. Facebook engagement stayed close to flat around 1% for most of the year, ticking up slightly to around 1.35% by June 2026.

Best-performing post types

Facebook: Reel and Photo were the top-performing organic formats this quarter. In Q2 2026, Reel generated a median of 8 post interactions, while Photo also reached 8. Live Video had negligible post volume in Middle East Markets this quarter and is not separately reported.

Instagram: Carousel and Reel posts lead organic performance. Carousels generated a median of 34 post interactions this quarter; Reels also reached 34.

Full organic post type performance (Q2 2026):

Post type distribution trends:

On Facebook, Photo remains the dominant post format at around 57% of posts, though Reels are gaining share steadily — rising from near zero earlier in the year to approximately 37% by Q2 2026. On Instagram, Reels, Images, and Carousels each account for roughly a third of posts published, with Reels and Carousels driving the majority of top-performing content.

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 Middle East Markets brands in Q2 2026:

Facebook:

Instagram:

How does your brand compare?

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Paid performance: Facebook and Instagram ads

Where brands are spending

The majority of paid spend for Middle East Markets brands goes to IG feed, followed by IG instagram reels and FB feed. Spending on IG feed is 1.78 percentage points higher than on IG instagram reels.

CPC and CPM by placement

The most cost-efficient placements for Middle East Markets brands this quarter:

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

CPC and CPM by placement (Q2 2026):

Click-through rate by placement

Within the Middle East Markets brands benchmark, FB feed leads on CTR at 1.35%, compared to IG feed at 0.72%.

CTR by placement (Q2 2026):

Cost trends over time

Q2 2026 ad cost benchmarks for Middle East Markets:

Beverages did not have its own dedicated ad-account breakout in this deck — only a single “Middle East Markets Ad Accounts Benchmark” data set appears across the ad-cost trend slides, so the Brands benchmark and Middle East Markets overall figures shown here are the same underlying data. (Note: the trend chart’s legend is labeled “Asia” in the source deck, which appears to be a mislabeling carried over from another regional version of this template — the slide captions and surrounding data are consistently for Middle East Markets, so that data set is what’s reported here.) CPC held mostly in the $0.08–0.09 range through the year, spiking briefly to about $0.10 in March 2026 before settling back to roughly $0.08 by June 2026. CPM trended gently upward, ending the period near $0.86 — its highest point in the series. CTR also trended upward overall, ending around 1.02%, just off a recent peak of roughly 1.05% in May 2026.