Last week, Taylor Swift was the No. 1 celebrity on the Adweek/Shareablee Instagram branded video charts after she posted a clip of herself driving in a car while lip-syncing to Kendrick Lamar's hip-hop tune "Backseat Freestyle." The Spotify-dissing songstress picked up 913,500 likes and comments for the 15-second social video.
And it appears that Selena Gomez might have taken notice because she grabbed the top spot in the celebrity category this week by employing the same tactic. Gomez does more than lip-sync in her Instagram video, though, as the 22-year-old pop star belts out the chorus from Carrie Underwood's "Something in the Water" tune that hit the market this month.
Like Swift, Gomez selected a song from an artist who doesn't normally perform in her category. (Gomez is pop, while Underwood is country, for instance.) And Swift and Gomez chose to shoot the video in a car. While it could be a coincidence, Gomez lists Swift as an influence on her Wikipedia page, so they could easily follow one another on the social platform.
At any rate, Instagram users definitely "like" seeing pop singers cover other stars' tunes. Gomez garnered 758,000 likes and comments for her effort to beat out all others in her niche from Nov. 10 through Nov. 16.
The Adweek/Shareablee chart below features eight categories (auto, beauty, consumer electronics, retail, fashion, celebrity, sports leagues and TV shows) every week and showcases the best branded effort. Two wildcard niches are always sprinkled in, and we've chosen sporting goods/apparel and fashion luxury for this week's edition.
Another standout performance goes to Mercedes-Benz, which continues to show that taking Instagram viewers to unusual places is a winning formula.
Check out Gomez and Mercedes-Benz's work via the multimedia infographic below where you can watch the top Instagram videos and see the brands' organic reach.