Among UK-based Specialty Retail brands, Instagram dominates social interactions. Ninety-six percent of consumer interactions with UK retail brands in Q3 2016 happened on Instagram, in spite of their large (500,000+) brand followings on Facebook.
The visual focus of Instagram could be a main driver of consumer preference, as 56% of social media users say they follow brands to see products.
Does that mean UK retail brands (and even other categories) can afford to abandon their efforts on Facebook and Twitter? Not entirely. Facebook is investing in on-platform transaction capabilities and easier connection to brand homepages, which could lead to conversions.
Twitter’s innovations, however, do little to promote the products of retail brands. Moments and Periscope have done little to stop year-over-year stagnation in the brand’s user base and stagnation. Less than 1% of social interactions happen on Twitter, which means brands can safely scale back their efforts on the platform.
Despite Index brands boasting, on average, larger community sizes on Facebook (nearly half of all Index brands on Facebook have above 500,000 followers) than any other social media platform, Instagram was responsible for 96 percent of the total combined 277 million interactions across Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter in Q3 of 2016.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s constant attempts at innovation, including acquiring Periscope and introducing ‘moments,’ have done little to stop year-over-year stagnation in growth and engagement. For Specialty Retail brands in the UK, Twitter garners less than one percent of the total combined interactions across the top three most adopted platforms. As with other sectors, the platform largely serves as a customer service touch point, with over a third of brands operating a secondary customer Twitter handle dedicated to customer service inquiries.