You have one day and $250 to spend on creating a social media creative. Which social network would you spend that time and money on?
Facebook? But, Facebook’s organic reach is down drastically after changes to its algorithm.
LinkedIn? But, it is still primarily a B2B marketing channel.
Google+? Well, it is a graveyard. There maybe counter-arguments, but that is the truth.
Twitter? Good choice, but you can do better. Much better.
Instagram would be unanimously your best bet. Why? Crazy engagement – Forrester research proves it. You can be sure you are going to grab eyeballs – guaranteed. Marketers, if you are not on Instagram already, you are missing out on a lot. Don’t take my word for it. Let the numbers below prove it to you.
A key point before we delve into this Instagram vs. Twitter engagement face-off:
Likes are easy to give on Instagram. As are favorites and retweets on Twitter. While these count towards engagement, a very important parameter of your followers’ engagement with your brands is the number of responses, you receive in terms of comments (Instagram) and replies (Twitter). And, though Twitter does not give a reply count, our visits to the posts proved that they were too few to actually be considered.
The number of comments on Instagram was what threw us off. Someone posting a comment, actually implies a very high level of engagement, because it involves a significant amount of effort when compared to hitting the like, retweet or fav buttons. We also analyzed and made sure none of our analysis included any fake engagements, e.g., purchased Instagram comments.
How we calculated engagement (Interactions):
On Twitter: Number of RTs + Number of Favorites
On Instagram: Number of Likes + Number of Comments
#1 Oreo’s Twitter vs. Instagram Engagement
Oreo has a really cool social media marketing team. They put up some of the most creative posts out there on their social media networks. We found two that overlapped on their Twitter and Instagram channels – one an image, the other a video.
The numbers speak for themselves.
These Oreo coated strawberries got 22X more engagement on Instagram than on Twitter. Comments: 449!
The video below witnessed a spike of 29X engagement-wise on Instagram as opposed to Twitter.
Follower Counts for Oreo:
On Twitter: 836K
On Instagram: 2.5M
#2 NatGeo’s Instagram Engagement = 20000% More Than Its Twitter Engagement
National Geographic need not even try to get followers. Followers find NatGeo whichever social network it goes to. I personally follow its Instagram account very avidly.
For an answer to my initial Instagram marketing question, I had a look at NatGeo’s Twitter account as well. They don’t seem to share a lot of images on there. A few that they did were not the same as the ones on their Instagram account. We, therefore, took the ones that were similar and compared them and were the results astounding?!
Both the shots above are awesome, but the one on Instagram got 289005 interactions more than the one shared on Twitter. Additionally, there were almost 2500 comments on the Instagram image! The only difference we could ascertain was the difference in the networks where they were posted.
Both of the images above are those of a Green sea turtle. Different angles and the Instagram one probably looks more picturesque. However, a 20447% higher interaction count is hard to ignore. Not to mention 8670 comments. 8670 comments. 8670 comments. Twitter’s total interactions couldn’t match that!
Follower Counts for NatGeo:
On Twitter: 22.4 M
On Instagram: 95.5 M
#3 Volkswagen’s Posts Replicate Instagram’s Marketing Power
Volkswagen does a good job on all social networks. It had a few replicating images on its Twitter and Instagram channels. Here’s how two of those posts performed:
Same photos both, but the engagement ratio is 1: 28. Same goes for the one below:
Follower Counts for Volkswagen:
On Twitter: 132K
On Instagram: 4.8 M
For brands and marketers that have been asking “Why Instagram?”, really you don’t need any more proof, do you? You do? Oh well! Alright, check out Starbucks’ and Nike’s Twitter vs. Instagram engagement results.
#4 Over 100K Instagram Likes For Starbucks’ Instagram Posts
Starbucks is one of the most referred to when any social media analysis is done because they are really good at it. Several case studies have been written on this topic. Let’s see how their performance measures up on Twitter vs. Instagram.
We’d rather not do the calculations here, but Instagram far outperforms Twitter engagement-wise.
Here’s another image that went on both, Starbucks’ Instagram and Twitter with slight modifications. The number on the right speaks for itself:
Follower Counts for Starbucks:
On Twitter: 11.4 M
On Instagram: 17.1 M
Conclusion:
You cannot, repeat cannot, ignore Instagram. If you want your business to not miss out on the opportunity to engage with your existing and potential customers on Instagram, create an account on there pronto. Instagram marketing is an absolute essential. It’s huge, growing at an amazing pace, boasts of over 1000 million users and is “the” network for businesses to establish their presence on.
