Popular brands choose Instagram over Facebook: Study

An increasing number of popular brands are posting more on Instagram than on Facebook, a study conducted by New York-based research firm L2 suggests. Both brand and social media users are slowly preferring the easier-to-use and “less boring” Instagram. L2 said that around three million US teenagers stopped using Facebook between 2011 and 2014, while “the same cohort now cites Instagram as their most important social network”, according to a Benzinga.com report. Ranging from sportswear to beauty and consumer electronics, brands of all sorts are instantly captivated by Instagram’s organic reach. L2 pointed out that, when it comes to beauty brands, some cult colour brands like MAC, Nyx and Urban Decay rely on their ardent fan bases for Instagram love, while others, like Proactiv and Estee Lauder, push celebrity influencers to boost growth and engagement. Top brands’ Instagram posts generate a per-follower engagement rate 58 times higher than their Facebook posts - and 120 times higher than their Twitter posts, according to a research and advisory firm Forrester. Facebook had decided to change its advertising policies last year and announced in a blog post that beginning in January 2015, “people will see less of promotional page posts” and stated that brands that marketed promotional content on the site “will see a significant decrease in distribution”. Facebook bought Instagram in April, 2012 for a billion dollars, and Instagram is now valued at a whopping $35 billion. IANS