Dive summary: 

• Simply Measured's study of the top 100 brands on Facebook revealed that although the use of hashtags on Facebook has increased by 20%, the practice isn't resulting in any higher engagement. 
• The study analyzed the top 100 brands on Facebook from May 1 to June 30; the purpose of the study was to see how the top brands were leveraging Facebook and how they were experiencing that success. 
• In addition to the hashtag findings, the study found that a brand's total engagement did not seem to be directly tied to the amount of times they posted in a day; they did find that visual posts drove the most engagement, with 9,500 engagements per post on average. 

From the article: 

"According to Simply Measured, the top performing brand vertical on Facebook is the automotive industry which posts an average of 2.1 posts daily and earns nearly double the average engagement per post. The study attributed the automotive vertical’s Facebook success to the large quantity of high quality car photos available."