“If your brand is looking for social engagement — and if you’re not finding it on Facebook, Twitter, or other social networks — you should start using Instagram today.” So concludes a blog post by Nate Elliot, whose recent research report for Forrester is titled “Use Instagram Now.”
Forrester tracked more than 3 million user interactions with more than 2,500 brand posts across social network. The findings? Branded content achieves low overall engagement rates, but Instagram stands out from the pack.
Brands achieve less than a 0.1% engagement rate on six of the seven social networks – including Facebook and Twitter – that Forrester tracked.
Instagram, though, is an outlier. Of the top brands Forrester tracked, the per-follower Instagram engagement rate is 4.21%. According to Elliot, this means that “Instagram delivered these brands 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter.”
Facebook has increasingly been courting media companies in an attempt to increase its social TV footprint. Still, Facebook has slowly made it more difficult for brands to achieve organic reach via its main platform. Before it – and other social companies – force paid solutions, advertisers and networks alike should jump at the opportunity to reach a more engaged audience on Instagram.
