The InstaSpark Between Top Brands And Instagram

A study conducted by research firm L2 suggests brands are now posting more to Instagram than on its parent company

social media platform. Both brands and social media users are slowly preferring easier-to-use and "less boring" Instagram. L2 stated that around three million U.S. teenagers (16-19 year olds) stopped using Facebook between 2011 and 2014, while "the same cohort now cites Instagram as their most important social network." Ranging from sportswear to beauty and consumer electronics, company brands of all sorts are instantly captivated by Instagram's organic reach, an opportunity that was once enjoyed on Facebook as well. However, Facebook decided to change its advertisement policies last year and announced in a blog post, "beginning in January 2015, people will see less of [promotional page posts]" and stated that brands which marketed promotional content on the site "will see a significant decrease in distribution." However, a

by research and advisory firm Forrester stated that even without Facebook's new policy, brands still couldn't really count on Facebook to reach a majority of their fans. For instance, in February last year, international advertising and marketing agency Ogilvy reported that Facebook posts by major brands reached a bare 2% of their fans. On Instagram however, "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," reported Forrester. Facebook bought Instagram in April, 2012 for a billion dollars, and Instagram is now valued at a whopping $35 billion - the acquisition is clearly paying off. Moreover, this past December Instagram announced it had even more users than

284 million.