Forrester Research Says Brands See Highest Engagement on Instagram

According to Forrester research, marketers should jump on the Instagram bandwagon before it’s too late!

The image sharing site has a network of over 200 million active users and has unfortunately been overlooked by many marketers as a fad social networking site.

However, data released by Nate Elliott of Forrester Research suggests the opposite. Brand posts on Instagram received a much higher engagement rate than posts published on Facebook, Twitter, and other social platforms.

The study involved observing three million user interactions on 2,500 posts from the top brands during the first quarter of 2014 and it found that Instagrams per follower engagement rate was 4.21%. Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and YouTube did better than 0.1%. Instagram’s results were 58 times larger than Facebook and 120 times larger than Twitter.

Why is Instagram Doing Better?

Forrester concluded that there’s simply less competition on the network. Fewer marketers take advantage and use Instagram (of the study, 58% of marketers are on Instagram, 94% on Twitter and 82% on Facebook). Those that are on Instagram post less frequently.

Additionally, as some may know, Facebook has substantially reduced the amount of organic reach company Page posts receive; the volume and frequency of Twitter posts makes it hard for a brand to make an impression.

Lastly, a majority of Instagram users are much younger – the median age is 27, compared to Facebook’s median age of 40. Younger audiences tend to interact with a brand on social media more.

For example, Red Bull posted a snowboarding video on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook engagement for the video was noted at 2,300 likes (0.06% likes per fan rate) compared to 36,000 likes (3% likes per fan rate) on Instagram. The report mentions that edgy brands like Red Bull and more non-edgy like Ford and General Electric are both doing well on the site.

If you aren’t using Instagram yet to build reach and branding, you should be! Take a look at our quick guide to getting started on Instagram.