Post Engagement Rates Remain Far Higher on Instagram Than Facebook or Twitter

March 4, 2021

Socialinsider Average Social Post Engagement Rate Mar2021Brand posts on Instagram had an average engagement rate in 2020 that was more than 4x higher than Facebook’s. This is according to recent findings from Socialinsider, which also analyzed social media engagement benchmarks across industries.

Based on data from more than 22 million posts from upwards of 56K business pages on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter, this latest benchmarks study finds that Instagram remains the platform with the highest engagement rate by some margin. In 2020, Instagram’s average post engagement rate grew slightly, from 1.09% to 1.16%.

This is compared to Facebook’s average engagement rate, which was mostly steady at 0.27% from the January to October 2020 period analyzed, compared to 0.26% in 2019 overall. Twitter’s engagement rate, which remains the lowest of the three platforms studied, dipped from 0.08% in 2019 to 0.07% in 2020.

It’s no surprise to see that in 2020, posts from those in the Politics sector saw the highest average engagement rate across all three platforms. In a year that saw racial justice demonstrations across the US as well as a presidential election, social media users had plenty to keep up-to-date on in the political arena.

On Instagram in 2020, the Politics sector saw an engagement rate of 2.74%, growing from 1.73% in 2019, with similarly above-average engagement rates in 2020 on Facebook (0.90%) and Twitter (0.47%).

Another change that reflects the events of 2020 is the decrease in engagement for the Airline industry. In 2019, airline companies had the highest engagement rate on Instagram (2.52%), but this fell to 2.27% during the 2020 period analyzed.

In the case of all three platforms analyzed, images are by far the preferred type of post. However, outside of Instagram, this does vary to some extent by industry. On Facebook, for example, the Airline industry is more likely to post videos (56.7% share) than any other post type, while on Twitter industries that are more likely to post a status than any other post type include Retail-Food (56.6%), Beverages (61.4%), and Telecom (50.5%).

About the Data: Results are based on an analysis of more than 22 million posts from 56,296 business pages between January 2019 and the end of October 2020.

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