Three reasons why Instagram has more engagement than Twitter

Less Twitter, more Instragram. Pew Research released their Social Media Update 2014. In 2013, 46% of Twitter users checked the site every day. In 2014, only 36% checked it daily. What a drop!

49% of Instagram users said they checked the service daily. Twitter’s engagement is down, while Instagram’s engagement is soaring? Why?

Chris Thilk reasons, “[Twitter may be] telling people that it’s the place to lean back and *view* updates.”

There may be a secret sauce to Instagram’s higher engagement rate.

Reason 1: Instagram is all about likes. 

On Instagram, users care more about getting likes than followers. On Twitter, it’s all about boosting that follower count–which then results in a ton of tweets you never want to read from your timeline.

Reason 2: Instagram likes are easy. 

But wait, doesn’t Twitter have the retweet? Isn’t that like a the Instagram like? Don’t people on Twitter care more about retweets than followers? Perhaps. But there is more of an investment in retweeting someone’s tweets. The very tweet appears on your own timeline. I would think that people are more cautious about retweeting than they are liking something on Instagram. What’s the harm in liking something on Instagram? It doesn’t get posted to your feed. It’s just a simple tap, like.

Reason 3: Instagram’s likes are core. 

Ok, so retweets aren’t parallel Instagram likes. But there are Twitter favs. However, the downfall of Twitter favs is that people don’t immediately use it for lots of tweets. I’m on twitter to read. Do I fav things? Sure. But I’m much more likely to like something on Instagram because it’s the primary function on Instagram for feedback. The Twitter fav is almost like an afterthought.