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The Four Major Carriers Are Hyping 5G, and Using Social to Do It

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5G networks and phones aren't available to most of us, but that hasn't stopped the four major carriers—AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, and Sprint—from promoting them. A study from social advertising intelligence platform BrandTotal found that the big four are largely using video on social platforms to spread the message.

News 2For Verizon and T-Mobile, Twitter is the preferred social platform. Verizon is putting 93% of its paid social ads on Twitter, while, T-Mobile is using it for 81%. Sprint, however, sees Facebook as the only viable option: It's running 100% of its paid social ads on the social network.

Instagram might be popular with young people, but it's not popular with the four major carriers. AT&T put 32% of its budget there, but the other three ignored it completely.

The study found vast differences in the age groups each carrier targeted. AT&T promoted a message about how 5G will enable self-driving cars and that will reduce distracted driving. It targeted this message largely at people 65-and-over. Verizon promoted a message of innovation largely to adults age 25 to 34. Sprint and T-Mobile spread their messages around to different age groups.

"This data is helpful toward competitive marketers within the mobile telecom industry, and even telecom-adjacent industries, as it gives them a complete view into the paid social media strategies of these brands," says BrandTotal co-founder and CEO Alon Leibovich. "Our ad visibility technology is able to identify, aggregate, and analyze ads across social media platforms, and allows us to understand who these brands are targeting, where their ads are appearing, what platforms they are using, and all of their creatives and core messages."

For more results, download "Ad Strategy Report: How Mobile Carriers Are Promoting 5G Across Social" for free (registration required).

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