Is Instagram going to overtake Facebook?

Facebook continues to experience steady growth in users in spite of the occasional fluctuation. And according to the 2018 Sprout Social Index, it remains the most favored social media platform among social marketers.

Instagram, on the other hand, notes a rapid and explosive growth, having reached 1 billion users in 2018. The platform has also undergone plenty of changes in terms of features and interface, enabling many options for advertisers.

To stay ahead of the curve in 2019, take a look at the most significant statistics for both platforms:

• 2 billion users are active on Facebook, compared to 1 billion for Instagram. This is likely to change soon, as Facebook usage among teens is dropping gradually. While 71% of teens claimed to use the platform in 2015, the number has now dropped to 51%. Instagram continues to attract a younger audience with 72% of teens saying that they use the platform. This is an impressive increase of 20% from 2015.
• 97% of social advertisers chose Facebook as their most used and most useful social media platform, whereas Instagram still takes second place with 83% of marketers using it for advertising. This is reflected in the number of business pages and profiles – on Facebook they have reached 65 million, compared to 25 million on Instagram.
• In terms of engagement, Instagram is way ahead of Facebook with a median engagement rate of 1.73% per post for brands. This number is only 0.16% per Facebook post.
• Nevertheless, Facebook ad revenue is still 4 times larger – for Q4 2018 it is 13.4 billion USD, compared to 2.9 billion USD for Instagram.

It appears that Facebook is still the more preferred social media for advertisers, but Instagram future is shining brighter and according to some predictions it will overtake Facebook in Usage in the USA by 2020.

Sources:

https://www.recode.net/2018/10/9/17938356/facebook-instagram-future-revenue-growth-kevin-systrom

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-statistics/

https://99firms.com/blog/instagram-marketing-statistics/

https://sproutsocial.com/insights/guides/2018-index/

https://www.convinceandconvert.com/baer-facts/9-reasons-instagram-will-overtake-facebook/