Instagram is closer to Facebook with brand activity than you think. While most marketers cannot run ads on Instagram yet, social media shop Shareablee compiled the following numbers, which illustrate that marketers are highly active on the social-mobile phone app.
The notable stats below are for United States brand pages during the second quarter. When analyzing these numbers, it is important to remember that Facebook went live in 2004, and Instagram hasn’t even been around for four years yet.
- Facebook garnered 2.5 million brand posts, a year-over-growth of 22 percent.
- Instagram had 493,000 of such posts, a 49 percent year-over-year jump.
- Facebook accrued 6 billion actions (likes, comments or shares).
- Instagram totaled 3.4 billion actions (likes, comments).
- Facebook had 2,396 actions per post.
- Instagram racked up 6,932 actions per post.
There are a few major takeaways from the findings: Firstly, Instagram got 56 percent as many total actions on the platform as Facebook during Q2 with its brand activity growing much faster on Instagram than Facebook. This isn’t necessarily surprising since Instagram is much newer to the marketing world than Facebook. However, what should spark interest is that Instagram is achieving three times the engagement per post when compared to Facebook.
While the future of paid advertising on Instagram remains unclear, Tania Yuki, Shareablee CEO, expects brands to jump on board to enhance their messaging.
“We are optimistic about Instagram’s future ad monetization potential,” said Yuki. “One unknown will be whether Instagram can find ways to effectively drive traffic to advertiser sites without detracting from its own traffic and engagement—and the willingness of advertisers to invest in Instagram without this outbound linking.”
Source: Adweek