A few years back it was unthinkable that Instagram would overtake Facebook in terms of U.S. brands’ social actions, which is the sum of likes, comments, shares and retweets. Think again. Instagram surpassed Facebook this year and accounted for 52% of brands’ total social actions, according to Shareablee data provided exclusively to PR News. Social actions grew 36% vs. 2014, with 75% of that growth from Instagram, 30% from Twitter and 9% from Facebook.
National Geographic led brands, with 94% of its 1.5 billion actions on Instagram. Photos of the supermoon were its top posts. The NBA, NFL and WWE were next. Video’s growth was huge, jumping 115% in ’15 vs. ’14. Video was particularly important to the NBA, where it drove 35% of social actions. Facebook and Twitter’s live video likely means more video growth in ‘16.
This article originally appeared in the December 21, 2015 issue of PR News. Read more subscriber-only content by becoming a PR News subscriber today.