Data released this week by Socialbakers showed that Instagram photo posts had 50 times the engagement for big brands as similar posts on Twitter. This follows a story that the photo app surpassed Twitter in total number of accounts, 300 million to 284 million. The study looked at the top 25 brands on each network and then compared user interaction with the brand’s posts. Twitter feels that it has more reach that is not easily tracked in such reports since it allows tweets to be viewed by non-account holders.

Many consider social media metrics to not mean much and would rather look at real money metrics, similar to traditional advertising. It doesn’t matter how many likes or retweets when there isn’t a transaction at the end of the funnel. Still many see this as proof that Instagram is more popular and more powerful than Twitter.

A similar report by Forrester Research in April showed 120 times the engagement, therefore this current report is better for Twitter in comparison. Some feel that Facebook will adapt the user wall in Instagram the way it did in Facebook, reducing the amount of business page posts an individual sees. That will bring Instagram down to more reasonable engagement levels compared to social competitors.

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