Brands are receiving growing numbers of engagement on Tiktok while Instagram still provides brands with the most reach, according to research published by analytics company Emplifi.

Although brands are opting to focus their efforts on posting short videos on Instagram and Facebook, user engagement for this form of content is decreasing overall. 

Emplifi, which analyzes thousands of brand social-media channels on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and Twitter, says that the visual content is being prioritized across all platforms.

"Visual content is prioritized in every feed," chief strategy officer Kyle Wong told Insider. "This is only going to continue, and it's something that I think is just going to be a natural part of how we use social media in the future."

TikTok grows to compete with Instagram 

As TikTok grows and continues to offer brands a gateway to expand their social media presence, Instagram still leads other platforms in terms of reach and interactions. 

On average, brand following expanded five-fold in the second quarter of 2023 on TikTok, while the more established Meta app saw only an on-average growth of 6%. However, Instagram is still able to bring brands better numbers in terms of reach, views, and interaction.

At the same time, TikTok led in engagement rate, which is the number of interactions, including likes, comments, and shares, divided by the number of followers that each account has.

"Video is a source of content that really unlocks a tremendous amount of creativity," Wong said. "Short-form video — YouTube shorts, reels, TikTok — is really a platform that's here to stay."

Instagram reigns on as the best app for brands

Emplifi revealed that Instagram is substantially larger at driving organic engagement for brands in comparison to Facebook and Twitter. The company provided no information on how Instagram faired against TikTok, citing the lack of historical data and its inability to access its private API.

On average, brands on Instagram received 56 impressions in Q2 2023, while numbers were significantly slashed for Facebook and Twitter, which allowed brands to receive 9 and 4 impressions, respectively.

Reels and Carousels top formats

Instagram content in the form of reels and carousels, posts that consist of multiple images, are the best performing, according to Emplifi.

Reels gave brands an average of 75 interactions, while carousels came in a close second at 74 interactions.

Although reels outperformed single-image posts by receiving 55% more interaction and single-image posts by 29%, their engagement year-on-year has dropped by 30%.

This is due to heavy competition and overcrowding of content as brands publish a greater amount of such content. The phenomenon could also trace back to a possible change in the app's algorithm, which may be promoting less video content due to an "overfocus." 

Facebook Reels surge in 2023

Even though Live videos registered the most organic views for businesses on Facebook, 82% of brands used Facebook reels for ad placements in Q2 2023. 

"Brands had to build the capabilities to be able to utilize reels," Wong highlighted. "As brands continue to work with more influencers and customers, and more user-generated content and other mechanisms for producing more effective vertical video content, I believe the usage for short-form video is only going to increase."

The chief strategy officer says that brands are exploiting the fact that they can cross-post reels between Facebook and Instagram, which belong to the same company.

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