Social Performance Measurement For Agencies
Instagram Study March 2015 – Photo Engagement 267% higher than on Facebook!
Tina Ahmed posted on 9 April 2015
There seems to be a lot of discussion around which is the better platform for brand engagement, Facebook or Instagram? We’ve already discussed in some detail Facebook organic reach and engagement, even to the degree of launching a new, free tool last week for marketers to benchmark against, in the form of Page Analyser.
This time we decided we would delve into organic engagement on Instagram and do a quick study with 400 profiles amounting to 100 million fans.
Instagram’s Footprint
The size of Instagram is often underestimated and not only that, it is growing……rapidly. Twitter certainly get the lion’s share of attention, but Instagram is now the bigger channel, with more than 300 million monthly active users, posting 70 million photos a day. Twitter, on the other hand, is at 288 million, though posting a staggering 500 million tweets per day. From a marketers perspective, Instagram is looking like a good bet with a larger audience and less noise to battle through.
Instagram has some way to go before they can challenge the 1.39 billion monthly active users of parent company Facebook, but that is too simplistic an analysis. The demographics of Facebook users suggest a broader representation across user ages than the visual only platform of Instagram, which has a user base comprising of younger age groups. Therefore, for brands with a younger market segment, the increased targeting may be beneficial if you have messaging that works in a visual format.
Another point to consider is the lack of algorithm defining what is seen in a follower’s Instagram feed. We’d be naive to believe that couldn’t change, but theoretically (not the easiest to prove/disprove) everyone currently sees everything from the Instagram profiles they follow.
Ok, let’s take a look at the numbers and see what we can learn.
Note these are based on organic activities only.
Profiles average 1 new post per day.
Not surprisingly, 93% of all posts were photos, 7% were videos.
Average follower growth was 12% in March, this is in sharp contrast to Facebook where it was an average decrease of 0.13% in the same period.
5.5% of all followers engage (like or comment) with a photo post. On Facebook the photo engagement number was 1.5% of the total page likes.
3.5% of all followers engage with a video post. On Facebook the engagement on a video post was 0.2% of the total page likes.
99.3% of engagements were people clicking on like, 0.7% of engagements were comments. Liking as an engagement on Facebook posts was 94%.
Have we got you thinking?
If so, here are 3 action points we recommend for you:
If your brand could work on Instagram then get started now! You’re losing out on organic reach and engagement.
Are you on Instagram but not very active? Start posting more. One post a day will start to build momentum.
Do you have video content? Post 15 second teasers with links to your long-form videos on Facebook and YouTube channels.
When you become active on Instagram, take a look at Locowise which will give you an in-depth analysis of your profile, content and even your competitor’s performance. We offer you a totally free trial so there’s no reason not to give it a go today.
