7 Things I Learned From the State of Social 2026 Report

Every January, KAM and Kitch publish their State of Social report, the most comprehensive benchmarking study of how hospitality brands use social media in the UK. The 2026 edition surveyed 68 brands representing over 1,900 sites across restaurants, pubs, bars, nightclubs, competitive socialising, and more.

KAM’s Katie Jenkins and Kitch’s Chloe Rafferty hosted a webinar to walk through the findings, joined by Glenda Barber (Host and Community Lead, Team Marketing) and Katie Richardson from Nell’s. You can catch the full webinar on YouTube if you want to watch it yourself. Here’s what stood out.

Key Hospitality Social Media Benchmarks for 2026

• 100% of hospitality brands are active on Instagram (median 30,132 followers)
• 85% are on Facebook, down from 97%. 81% of Facebook interactions now come from paid
• 71% are on TikTok, with median video views of 114,500 per brand
• 51% now have a LinkedIn page, up from 21%
• 91% do some form of influencer marketing. Paid influencer work has risen from 37% to 49%
• 90% use UGC-style video content. Professional photography and videography usage has dropped
• 1.3 average social media team size. 87% outsource at least one element
• 44% of brands can’t track bookings or conversions from paid ads
• 48% of the average social budget goes to paid ads, 21% to content creation
• 76% use AI for copywriting, but only 27% for content creation

1. Instagram Is Untouchable, but Only 9% Use Broadcast Channels

For the second year running, 100% of contributing brands are active on Instagram. 90% have a dedicated platform strategy. Audiences are still growing, with a median of 30,132 followers per brand, and engagement rate holds steady at 0.2%.

The report breaks down content performance in a useful way. Reels generate 44% of interactions but only 19% of views, making them the strongest driver of engagement. Posts deliver 62% of views and 44% of interactions, offering broader reach. Brands are averaging around four posts or Reels per week.

But the stat that jumped out was broadcast channels: only 9% of hospitality brands have one. Another 7% plan to introduce one this year. As Katie Jenkins noted during the webinar: “Broadcast channels are a huge opportunity to build community and interact with your customers directly.” For an industry that talks constantly about community, that’s a gap worth closing.

2. Facebook Is a Paid Channel Now (With a Few Exceptions)

Facebook adoption dropped from 97% to 85%. More than half of brands (53%) now automate their Facebook content from Instagram. And the data makes the shift clear: 81% of Facebook interactions are driven by paid ads.

Engagement has actually risen, from 0.1% to 0.4%, but that’s almost entirely fuelled by paid activity. The report describes Facebook as “shifting from a community channel to a performance and conversion engine for many.”

There are exceptions though. Pubs and bars remain the most committed to Facebook as a core channel. Chloe shared a good example during the webinar: Harry Ramsden’s treats Facebook as their top-performing platform because they have “an older loyal customer base.” As she noted: “It can deliver more engagement organically than other channels, depending on your audience.”

Nightclubs continue to see strong results from targeted paid event promotions, and the report flags Facebook Groups as an underexplored opportunity for building community spaces outside the pay-to-play main feed.

3. TikTok Adoption Dipped, but the Brands Still Doing It Are Getting Better Results

TikTok adoption dipped slightly to 71% of hospitality brands. But the brands that remain are approaching it with more clarity. The number saying they have a dedicated TikTok strategy has risen from 56% to 63%, and those that do put budget behind it now allocate an average of 17% of their paid social spend to the platform.

The median brand has 3,388 followers (modest compared to Instagram), but reach tells a different story: 36,000 median reached audience over 12 weeks, with 114,500 median video views. As Katie pointed out during the webinar: “Does follower count really matter anymore versus views and engagement? … What matters is whether people are searching for your brand, saving your content, and sending it to a mate saying ‘let’s go here.’”

The report notes that brands relying too heavily on repeated trends are seeing less impact. The ones breaking through show personality and originality. Chloe highlighted Vapiano’s and Young’s as examples: “You don’t need to post five times a day, but four times a week, three times a week, as long as it’s consistent, you’re on the right path.”

She also made a point about TikTok as a search engine that’s worth repeating: “If you’re trying to lead in ‘we are the best [food type] in [city],’ you can very easily search that. And if you’re coming up early to that answer, you can say that’s a version of success.”

The report agrees: “TikTok is increasingly where the next generation of hospitality heroes are built, and the brands that show up with confidence and a clear voice are the ones gaining ground.”

4. The Resource Problem Isn’t Getting Better, and It’s Costing Real Money

For the second year running, limited time, stretched teams, and lack of dedicated resource topped the list of challenges. One in two brands mentioned it as their biggest problem.

The numbers from the report:

• Average social media team size: 1.3 people
• 63% have a dedicated social media manager
• 87% outsource at least one element of their social strategy (videography, photography, paid management, influencer marketing)
• Over half (53%) don’t plan to change their team size in 2026

Chloe was direct about this during the webinar: “Brands see the importance of social but still don’t want to grow internal teams. I would use this insight. Go to your wider team or board. Fight for budget. They want results, but they need team expansion to achieve the objectives. It’s just not sustainable.”

The real standout moment came from Ruth Carpenter, sales and marketing director at Blacklock, who was on the panel at the earlier live event. She calculated that by not responding to DMs and enquiries outside of office hours, Blacklock was losing £11,000 per month per site from missed DMs alone, and £28,000 in missed calls. As Chloe recounted: “She told the room how by working out the average spend per head, they’d lost £11k a month per site just from DMs and £28k in calls just by not getting back to people at those key times.”

The report’s community management data backs this up. On Instagram, 90% of brands engage on weekdays, but that drops to 46% on weekends and 51% in the evenings. TikTok follows a similar pattern: 88% weekday, 42% weekend, 48% evening. For an industry built around evenings, weekends, and real-world guest moments, that’s a clear disconnect.

As Katie put it: “If they’re in your venue, you’re not going to not speak to them. So why would you do that on Instagram?“

5. Almost Half of Brands Can’t Track What Paid Is Delivering

The report found that only 56% of brands can track bookings or conversions directly from paid ads. That means 44% can’t confidently link their spend to commercial outcomes. 17% say they can’t track paid performance at all. And 41% are running campaigns without leveraging their own customer data for targeting.

Instagram’s paid strategy usage has risen from 81% to 90%. Facebook’s from 77% to 91%. Brands are spending more on paid social, but many still can’t measure what it delivers.

As the report puts it: “This is creating a widening gap between rising investment and the ability to measure its effectiveness.”

Chloe called it “a real issue” during the webinar and pointed out that the fix is often simpler than brands think: “You can install the Meta and TikTok pixel to track custom conversions. This is free. Even if you’re not spending, set it up to build future audiences.”

Katie shared how Nell’s had overhauled their approach: “With our conversion ads, they sort of run as our base ads. They’re always there. They’re learning. We’re using customer data. We’re using it to funnel into other streams of our marketing strategy, like CRM and guest invites and surprise and delight.”

6. UGC Has Won, and It Works in Paid Too

User-generated content is now the dominant creative approach in hospitality social media. The report breaks down what brands are actually using:

• 90% use UGC-style video content
• 72% use creator content
• 71% use UGC-style photo content
• 47% use employee-generated content
• Professional photography (85%) and videography (60%) still have a place, but usage of both has dropped significantly versus last year

The report makes an important distinction: “UGC does not mean unpolished. It means real. Brands need to show up authentically while maintaining the identity that makes them recognisable.”

What stood out in the webinar was how strongly UGC performs in paid campaigns. Chloe noted that when they switch from professional creative to UGC-style Reels for clients, “the conversion just shoots up.” Katie agreed: “It’s so easy to think ‘I’m going to put a load of money behind it, so it’s got to be really professional,’ and it doesn’t feel native to the platform you’re putting it on.”

The Real Greek was highlighted as a standout case study in the report. Their chef Vaios’s tzatziki recipe video hit 4.4 million organic views across platforms, and the brand has grown its follower base by over 36% through culturally rich, personality-led content.

Natalie Dunning from Kitch also recalled how, ten years ago when working with a brand, “they wanted to lead with a professional only strategy and engagement dipped by 60%.“

7. The Year Ahead Is About Depth, Not Breadth

Nearly half of brands (47%) plan to add no new channels this year. No expansion is planned for Facebook, X, Substack, or Reddit. The focus is on getting more from what they already have.

The report identifies five priority areas for 2026:

1. TikTok-first strategies and short-form video. Shifting from cross-posting to native storytelling. The report notes many brands plan to “go all in” with bespoke TikTok strategies.
2. Deeper community building. Moving from transactional content to storytelling that captures culture, people, heritage, and experience.
3. Stronger paid tracking and data-driven decision making. Directly attributing social activity to bookings, ticket sales, and footfall.
4. Influencer, creator, and advocacy programmes. 91% of brands now do some form of influencer marketing. Paid influencer work has risen from 37% to 49%. The shift is from one-off gifting towards longer-term creator relationships.
5. AI adoption. 76% already use AI for copywriting, though usage drops off sharply beyond that (27% for content creation, 18% for ad optimisation). The report suggests AI’s role in deeper creative and strategic work is still developing.

Chloe’s recommendation during the webinar was clear: “Focus on existing channels and what’s working there before adding anything else into the mix.”

LinkedIn was one notable growth area. Adoption more than doubled from 21% to 51%, with 80% of brands using it for recruitment. Chloe highlighted Big Mamma Group: “They show company roundups, interviews, team members, people progression, milestones. You really get a feel for the people in the business.”

As Glenda wrote in her contribution to the report: “The real competitive advantage is no longer what you know, but who you learn with.”

What This Means for Your Strategy

The State of Social report is worth reading in full. There’s detailed benchmarking by estate size and subsector that’s hard to summarise here. But the broad themes are clear. Hospitality social media in 2026 isn’t about being on every platform or posting more content. It’s about:

• Choosing your platforms deliberately and investing properly in the ones you pick
• Closing the community management gap, especially evenings and weekends, where real revenue is being left on the table
• Tracking what your paid spend actually delivers so you can make the case for more budget
• Leaning into UGC and creator content as your primary content style, including in paid campaigns
• Building real community, not just accumulating followers

You can download the full State of Social summary report from KAM.

If you’re looking to work smarter with influencer marketing this year, book a demo to see how Joli helps hospitality brands find, book, and manage creator partnerships without adding to your team’s workload.