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Socialbakers Report The State of Social : vs. in 2020 About the Report Introduction

Facebook and Instagram serve as the de-facto leaders in What does mean to have a “current” understanding of Facebook and when it comes to usage and volume - more than 6 million Instagram? As both platforms evolve their feature set, consumer behaviors marketers leverage Facebook and Instagram in their marketing campaigns and demographics shift, and marketers adjust their strategies in response, and no other comes remotely close to matching the paid the landscape of both paid and organic social on either platform is constantly spend on these two platforms. When it comes to organic content and the changing. volume/reach of non-promoted posts, the story doesn’t change much - Facebook and Instagram still reign supreme and have yet to be seriously This report will reference ’ Facebook and Instagram data challenged by another platform. from Q1 2019 - Q1 2020 to uncover the latest trends and insights that are crucial for marketers to understand if they want to find success Key Point: The sheer dominance of Facebook and Instagram when it leveraging social media in 2020. comes to both paid and organic social means that it is crucial for successful marketers to have a comprehensive and current understanding of both This report will also review the current (Q1 2020) distinctions between platforms and how they differ. Facebook and Instagram that are important to consider in order for marketers and to:

Effectively allocate paid advertising budgets between the two platforms

Create content strategies that align with both platforms

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 1 Table of Contents

Facebook and Instagram at a Glance 3 Facebook or Instagram in 2020? 17-22 Key Trends and Developments 4-12 Key Audience and Demographic Figures 18 Engagement on Instagram Continues to Pull Away From 6-7 Ad Formats and Placements 20 Facebook Ad and Campaign Objectives 21 Reach on Instagram Surpasses Facebook for Top Brands 8 The Takeaway 22 Shift in Paid Spend Towards Instagram 9 Rapid Growth of Instagram 10 Tuesday 11 Stop Hate for Profit Boycott 12

New Feature Adoption and Development 13-16 Instagram TV 14 Instagram Shops and Checkout 15 Changes 16

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 2 Facebook and Instagram at a Glance

Facebook and Instagram at a Glance

User Location - Top 3 Countries Facebook and Instagram are the two biggest platforms used by brands and agencies for . Before diving into recent trends and insights regarding the 241 tag">M U.S. 88 M two platforms, let’s look at a quick snapshot of both platforms and examine how their use for and brands have evolved over time. U.S. 240 M 28 M

Number of on each platform Monthly Active Users

Brazil 139 M Brazil 27 M Facebook 2.5 B

Instagram 1 B

Source: venturebeat.com, .com, thenextweb.com, www.statista.com Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 3 Key Trends & Developments

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 4 Key Trends and Developments

Facebook and Instagram - Instagram’s Contribution to Facebook’s Revenue in 2019 Key Trends & Developments

In 2016, Instagram brought in In 2019, Instagram brought in $3.64 Billion out of $27.638 Billion (15.4%) $20 billion, out of $70 billion for Facebook as a whole (28.6%) One of the biggest trends covered by almost every marketing publication over the past 2 has been the shift in total ad spend from Facebook to Instagram, a trend that continued at a far more blistering pace in Q4 of 2019 compared to previous years.

We can look at Socialbakers’ data from the past (with metrics compiled 2016 2019 from the top 100,000 branded accounts across all social media channels), and see that this trend is tied to positive shifts in engagement and reach metrics for Instagram over the past two years. Despite the impact of COVID-19 in Q1 of 2020, the existing trends in overall engagement and reach established in 2019 continued into 2020.

Instagram Facebook Total

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 5 Key Trends and Developments

Engagement on Instagram Total Interaction Rates Continues to Pull Away from Facebook

Over the course of the past 3 years, Instagram has cemented itself as the dominant platform over Facebook when it comes to engagement - in Q1 of 2020 this trend continued and the gap between the two platforms continued to rise with total interactions on Instagram more than 16 times higher than Facebook, despite brands posting more on the latter.

To see how drastic the difference in engagement is across both platforms, we can simply look at any number of brands and analyze cross-posted content.

To the right, we can see an of Disney cross-posting the same post onto both Instagram and Facebook. In addition, this was Disney’s top performing post in terms of engagement on both platforms. For two identical posts published at the same time, the number of interactions was dramatically higher on Instagram compared to Facebook.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 6 Key Trends and Developments

Engagement on Instagram

Ecommerce 17.0% Continues to Pull Away Retail 13.8% Services 8.8% from Facebook (cont) Fashion 8.1% Auto 5.9% 5.6% Almost 30% of Facebook’s interactions fall under the category FMCG Food 5.3% “other”, while Instagram’s engagement is more concentrated among a Finance 5.1% select number of industries.

Others 30.4%

While Instagram dominates when it comes to overall audience engagement, the chart to the left shows us that there is still a clear distinction between Fashion 25.9% the content users based on the platform they are on.

Ecommerce 18.0% Beauty 11.7% Auto 10.4% The fact that there are industries that see top 8 levels of engagement on Retail 9.6% Facebook but almost none on Instagram gives a clear sign that certain Electronics 4.5% have not found success on Instagram and are not leveraging the Sporting Goods 4.1% platform.

Services 3.7% Others 12.0% Regardless, Instagram’s continued dominance over Facebook when it comes to engagement has led many to shift their spend to the newer platform, especially in E-Commerce where Facebook is losing ground.

Chart Time Range: January 01, 2020 - March 31, 2020; Sample: Facebook Brands Pages & Instagram Profiles Worldwide; Source: Socialbakers data Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 7 Key Trends and Developments

Audience Size on Instagram Surpasses

Facebook for Top Brands Total Audience Total Posts Total Interactions

Similar to engagement, brand audiences on Instagram have been trending up while the same metrics for Facebook remain stagnant. In Q4 2019, the total audience size on Instagram (for the top 50 brands) surpassed that on Facebook for the first time. In Q1 2020, the trend continued and the gap grew - for top 50 brands, audience sizes on Instagram were 28% larger.

While Instagram leads in engagement and audience size, brands still post more on Facebook. The platforms differ in how users interact with them, with Facebook often being the choice for more informative content - in addition, there are industries that likely don’t leverage Instagram at all.

Instagram is now a platform that is highly effective at driving engagement and reaching large audiences, but most brands still find value in Facebook, and some don’t find success on Instagram in any capacity. This serves as Q1 2019 Q1 2020 a testament to the fact that the platforms aren’t substitutes for one another and must be approached as entirely separate channels.

Chart Time Range: January 01, 2019 - March 31, 2020; Sample: 50 Biggest Facebook & Instagram Brands Profiles Worldwide; Source: Socialbakers data Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 8 Key Trends and Developments

Shift in Paid Spend Relative Spend by Platform Position

Top 5 Placements by Spend Towards Instagram

70

60 Despite Instagram’s dominance in engagement and reach, the Facebook has historically captured the majority of relative ad spend and 50 still does as of Q1 2020. However, in the past two quarters there has been a 40 slight decline in Facebook’s share of ad spend, with more budget being allocated towards Instagram’s offerings. The chart to the left illustrates the 30 relative spend for different ad placements on both Facebook and Instagram

Relative Spend (in %) Relative 20 in Q1 2020.

10 The Facebook News Feed still saw the largest percentage of relative spend

0 by a sizable margin at 58%, however this figure is down from the previous

Feed Feed Stories Feeds Instream Video two quarters (60% and 62.3% respectively). Both the Instagram Feed and Facebook Instagram Instagram Facebook Facebook Instagram Story ad placements are beginning to take a larger share of the pie, combining to make up 28.7% of relative ad spend. Relative Spend

Chart Time Range: February 1, 2020 - March 31, 2020; Sample: All Ad Accounts Benchmark; Source: Socialbakers data Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 9 Key Trends and Developments

Rapid Growth of Instagram Stories

Although Facebook remains dominant in terms of relative ad spend, these figures don’t put into context the rapid growth of Instagram Stories. Overall, the spend on Instagram Stories increased by 40% compared to the previous year, and by 91% over the previous two years.

A key longer term takeaway from Instagram’s success with IG Stories - although a functionality directly copied from , Instagram has shown that they can implement features from other platforms and launch them with high rates of adoption amongst their users (many of whom utilize the original platforms).

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 10 Key Trends and Developments

Ad Spend (in USD) by Region #BlackoutTuesday Median Daily Ad Spend Values 300

250 #BlackoutTuesday was a coordinated boycott of social media and

activity in a demonstration of solidarity with the 200 movement. Taking place on June 2nd of 2020, the chart to the right clearly highlights to what extent US brands stood up to support the movement. 150

Spend (in USD) 100 Ad spend in North America decreased dramatically on June 2nd, before recovering in the following week. Globally, the same trend was observed but 50 to a lesser extent - note that #BlackoutTuesday did not specifically target 0 advertisers, however brands were clearly conscious enough to pause their Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun paid campaigns. 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020 2020

East Asia Northern America Western Europe South America Southeast Asia Southern Europe Central America Worldwide

Chart Time Range: 1st January 2020 - 27th June, 2020; Sample: Socialbakers Suite Benchmarks.; Source: Socialbakers data Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 11 Key Trends and Developments

Stop Hate for Profit Boycott

In the wake of #BlackoutTuesday and a growing concern over Facebook’s handling of misinformation and on its platform, a longer term boycott specifically targeting paid advertising on social media started to gain .

On June 17th, the group Stop Hate for Profit called on brands to pause their ad spending on Facebook in July, demanding that the company address concerns over racism and misinformation on its platform. As of June 30th, over 100 brands have pledged to participate in the boycott including Coca-Cola, , Verizon, and Ford.

It’s safe to say that both ad spend and Facebook’s revenue will see historic lows in the month of July - Unilever alone spent more than $42 million on Facebook advertising in 2019. A running list of participating companies can be found on Stop Hate for Profit’s , in addition to resources detailing how both consumers and businesses can contribute to their cause.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 12 New Feature Adoption and Development

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 13 New Feature Adoption and Development IGTV: Still Important?

IGTV, or Instagram TV, is the platform’s venture into long-form video. Since it initially launched in 2018, user adoption has been less than stellar. Throughout 2019, there were a number of Instagram features added to increase viewership on IGTV. These updates include:

Featuring IGTV content in the explore tab

Allowing creators to post embedded IGTV previews to their Instagram Stories

Allowing creators to post embedded IGTV previews to their feed

Although IGTV viewership figures are not made public, the addition of features promoting IGTV have led to increased views for creators and brands alike. For example, the leftmost video was only uploaded to IGTV, while the video on the right was cross-posted to Sephora's feed - the difference in engagement is huge.

Instagram also launched the first stage of monetization to a limited number of creators and advertising partners. This is a sign that at least internally, Facebook is bullish that IGTV will begin to pick up more traction.

Look for Facebook to continue scaling their monetization of IGTV in 2020. By 2021, Facebook expect full monetization of IGTV, with all brands and creators able to use in-stream video ads.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 14 New Feature Adoption and Development

Instagram Shops and Checkout Industry Specific Insight: E-Commerce

Instagram checkout was first released in July 2019, with a limited rollout to As we saw in our section on engagement, the beauty industry has boasted certain brands. Now the feature is available to all brands who sell physical the highest average engagement rate on Instagram while E-Commerce takes goods in the U.S market. the crown on Facebook. However, E-Commerce comes in at a close second on Instagram as well - in Q4 of 2019, E-Commerce engagement on

Instagram checkout is part of Facebook’s initiative to break into Instagram grew by an astounding 118%. If the trend continues, E-Commerce E-Commerce alongside Facebook shops, with the goal of having the entire could easily usurp Fashion and become the most engaging industry across buying process contained within each platform, eliminating the need for both platforms.

users to sign up and store payment information with disparate brands.

“The surge in engagement for E-Commerce is due to Facebook’s initiatives

For companies, the value in a reduced number of abandoned shopping centered around in-platform shopping, with the eventual goal of allowing carts, as one of the main points of friction in the selling process for sellers to run their entire marketing funnel through Facebook or Instagram - E-Commerce has always been entering payment information and personal from product discovery to post-purchase customer support.”

details during checkout.

Yuval Ben-Itzhak, CEO, Socialbakers

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 15 New Feature Adoption and Development

Algorithm Changes

In addition, over the past 2 years Facebook executives have been pitching While old news, Facebook made key changes to their newsfeed the importance of Instagram Stories to shareholders. Looking at transcripts in 2018 with the goal of prioritizing content posted from friends and family of quarterly Facebook earnings calls between Q3 2018 and Q1 2020, and reducing the amount of content shown from businesses and brands. Instagram Stories has been mentioned over 200 times.

Facebook’s official announcement regarding the changes explicitly stated that this would result in lowered engagement and reach for brands and advertisers on the platform.

With Facebook owning both social networks, it’s clear that they have been promoting and encouraging brands to spend more on Instagram. Since the feature launched, Facebook has constantly emphasized the importance of the vertical to its advertisers and brand partners.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 16 Facebook or Instagram in 2020?

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 17 Facebook or Instagram in 2020?

Key Audience and Demographic Figures

Over the years, the active user bases on Facebook and Facebook Instagram

Instagram have become more distinct. Understanding the Monthly Active Users 2.5 B 1 B general differences between audiences on Facebook and Instagram is crucial for marketers so they can make the right Largest Age Cohort 84% of 25–30 75% of 18–24 decisions when choosing what platform to utilize for specific year olds use year olds use Facebook Instagram marketing goals. Although both platforms offer robust targeting for promoted content, it’s still always important to understand the broader context and “big picture” breakdown User Location India: 280M U.S.: 120M

U.S: 190M India: 88M

of each social network. Indonesia: 130M Brazil: 82M

Here are some figures that will allow you to get a general idea of the “who” when it comes to both Facebook and Instagram Average Time Spent on Platform 58 min 53 min

The theme of Instagram catching up to Facebook in various metrics continues. The average time spent on Instagram now only trails Facebook by 5 minutes, and Instagram’s user counts have ballooned since 2016.

Source: venturebeat.com, techcrunch.com, www.statista.com, www.pewinternet.org, www.mediakix.com Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 18 Facebook or Instagram in 2020?

Facebook Instagram Ad Placements Feeds Your ads appear within users' News Feed. Your ads appear within users' Feed. in 2020 Your ads appear in-between people's Your ads appear in-between people's Stories Facebook or Messenger stories. Instagram stories.

Your ads appear in a column Right-hand Column / Your ads appear in the browsing experience Ad placements and formats on both platforms are on the right-hand side to users accessing Explore when someone clicks on a photo or video. constantly evolving - in 2021 we’ll most likely have Facebook on their . in-stream IGTV ads, and Facebook’s renewed focus on Groups Your ads appear in Facebook groups. developing and promoting “Facebook Groups” has made the “Group” ad placement much more compelling Your ads appear within Facebook Instant Instant Articles for advertisers.

Articles in the and Messenger

Your ads appear in the Marketplace Facebook Marketplace home page or when someone browses In order to take full advantage of Facebook and Marketplace in the Facebook app. Instagram's potential to engage, it's important to know Your ads appear within on Facebook the different ad formats that are available on each In-stream Video that are watched both on desktop and on platform and their strengths and weaknesses. Certain mobile. ad formats are better tailored to different campaign Your ads appear in the Home tab of Messenger Inbox goals - awareness, driving sales, etc.

Messenger.

Your ads appear next to relevant Facebook Facebook Search Results and Marketplace search results.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 19 Facebook or Instagram in 2020?

Ad Formats in 2020

Facebook Instagram What to use it for:

An ad utilizing a single image with multiple An ad using 1 photo, appearing Drawing attention to your business or specific products through eye-catching Single image placements available on Instagram’s main feed. photographs.

An ad using 1 video that appears on An ad using 1 video that's up to 60 seconds Facebook’s main feed, or in-stream alongside Complementing your TV advertising campaigns.

Single video long. Can be displayed on Instagram’s main Facebook’s video feed. Videos can be long Telling more complex business stories. feed or in-between Instagram Stories. form - up to 240 minutes long.

Directing users to specific places on your website.

Showcasing multiple products or services .

Carousel An ad using 2 - 10 scrollable images. An ad using 2 - 10 scrollable images. Explaining how your business or product works.

Telling a compelling story - one image at a time.

Grabbing users' attention and encouraging them to interact with your ad

An interactive ad allowing you to tell a story Canvas Acquiring new customers.

using a mix of photos and videos. Raising brand awareness.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 20 Facebook or Instagram in 2020?

Distribution of Campaigns by Objectives Mean Account Objectives Distribution on Facebook & Instagram

Post Engagement 23.2% Breakdown of Ad and Link Clicks 20.2% Reach 18.6% Campaign Objectives on Conversions 9.8% Video Views 9.8% Facebook and Instagram Brand Awareness 5.7% Page Likes 3.7% 2.5% To the right is an analysis of roughly 9,000 ad accounts on Facebook and Prod. Catalog Sales 2.3% Others 4.3% Instagram, segmented by campaign/ad objective.

It points to further differences in how marketers set their objectives for the Link Clicks 28.6% two platforms. For instance, on Facebook, marketers are mostly paying for Reach 20.0% Post Engagement 19.5% engagement, which we know has declined over past years, while on Conversions 9.8% Instagram, where engagement is still , marketers are paying for user Video Views 8.7% action further down the funnel. These differences again show that both Brand Awareness 6.3% platforms require a tailored advertising strategy. Prod. Catalog Sales 2.2% Lead Generation 2.2% Messages 1.2% Others 1.5%

Chart Time Range: January 01, 2020 - March 31, 2020; Sample: 4,676 Facebook Advertising Accounts; Source: Socialbakers data Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 21 The Takeaway

The Takeaway

When we look at this data in the context of the trends uncovered in the first section of this report, we can come to the conclusion that in general, Facebook is great for driving sales and conversions while Instagram is better for brand marketing and awareness.

Strictly in terms of E-Commerce or direct-to-consumer sales, Instagram is catching up with its focus on Instagram Shops. However, Facebook remains the go-to channel to drive conversions and clicks; it’s still less costly and offers additional targeting.

While they share many similarities and are managed from one platform, Facebook and Instagram must be viewed as distinct channels requiring their own unique strategies.

The space of is in constant flux as , consumer behavior, and intersect and evolve alongside and in response to one another.

As two of the world’s largest social networks that also reside at the forefront of technology and , Facebook and Instagram will continue to evolve in response to changing consumer desires and sentiments. It’s key for marketers to maintain a comprehensive and current understanding of these platforms in order to stay effective.

Facebook vs. Instagram in 2020 22 Methodology and Glossary

Have a question regarding any

of the data in the report?

Contact us at [email protected]

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Trends Report | Q4 2019 54