@Size vs. #Impact: Social Media Engagement Differences Amongst Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram

To say social media is popular amongst online users vastly understates the sheer volume of social media activity that takes place on a daily basis. For instance, the users of Facebook, the largest social media site in terms of size and activity, generate more than 2.5 billion items of new content per day, including over 250 million photos, and 10 billion instant messages sent between users (Facebook 2013). On the surface, Facebook users also appear to be highly engaged with the platform. According to Ajmera (2013), 26 % of Facebook’s 1.36 billion users check their account more than five times a day. While Facebook remains the most popular site across nearly all demographics, Twitter (285 million) and Instagram (150 million) are the second and third largest social networking sites, respectively (Pew Research 2013). However, despite their smaller size, Twitter and Instagram have recently overtaken Facebook in purchase decision influence for the teen and young adult demographic (Pipar, Jaffary, and Company 2013). In fact, Instagram, the smallest of the three major social media sites in terms of size, was the most influential.