Instagram 58 Times Better Than Facebook For User Engagement

Instagram stands out from the other social networks available as it produces more user engagement, a new study by Forrester reveals. In fact, it delivers 58 times more engagement than Facebook.

Based on three million user interactions with 2,500 brands, the study shows that for every one millionth Facebook fan a brand has, one post will pull in around 700 likes, comments and shares. In Twitter, a brand receives an average of 300 likes for every million followers.

When you look at Instagram, however, the numbers rise considerably. Content that brands post on the site delivers 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more than Twitter. Forrester tested seven different social networks in their study and in six out of seven, brands achieved engagement rates of less than 0.1%. On Instagram, however, posts generated an engagement rate of 4.21% per follower.

Nate Ellliot, principal analyst at Forrester, gave an example with a picture of snowboarding half-pipe, posted by Red Bull on both Facebook and Instagram. Only 2,600 of the brand’s 43 million Facebook fans liked the post – a likes-per-fan rate of 0.006%. The same picture gathered 36,000 likes on Instagram, where the brand has 1.2 million followers – a likes-per-fan rate of 3%.

The study suggests that this kind of user engagement is a result of fewer marketers using Instagram; posts on the social network are less frequent and they don’t have to compete with as much other content as they do on Facebook and Twitter. As the number of brands on Instagram grows, this network will also become busier and posts will become more filtered, Forrester forecasts.