Instagram Is Still Trouncing Twitter In Brand Engagement

Instagram’s surge past Twitter in active users — 300 million to 284 million — was big news last week, even sparking discussion about whether Instagram could eventually unseat Twitter as the top social news service.

That’s a battle that won’t be settled soon, but this week social analytics firm Socialbakers chimed in with a reminder to marketers that in terms of engagement Instagram is already blowing Twitter away.

Socialbakers compared the top 25 brands in Instagram engagement with the top 25 on Twitter and found per post engagement rates nearly 50 times higher on Instagram. Looking at three months of data ending December 9, the firm found that the average Instagram post for a major brand has a per fan engagement rate of 3.31% (counting likes and comments), whereas the top brands on Twitter are seeing a Twitter engagement rate of 0.07% per tweet, counting retweets, replies and favorites.

During the three month span, brands on the lists averaged 38 times more total interactions on Instagram (6.5 million a month) than Twitter (167,000). Socialbakers didn’t release the full lists but shared some interesting results from the five brands that appeared on both: Victoria’s Secret, Starbucks, GoPro, Forever21 and Aeropostale.

For comparison’s sake, I created a quick chart from the data, which represents per fan engagement rates with the brands’ not engagement rates per post. That accounts for the fact that most brands post more often on Twitter than Instagram and makes the gap even more impressive.

These engagement figures shouldn’t come as a surprise. They only confirm previous findings that Instagram is an extremely effective tool for brands to reach customers. For instance, a Forrester Research study released last May found Instagram’s per follower engagement rate for major brands to be 120 times higher than Twitter. In that study, Instagram also beat parent company Facebook by 58 times.

About The Author

Martin Beck

Martin Beck was Third Door Media's Social Media Reporter from March 2014 through December 2015.