According to Adweek, Shareablee, a social media shop, discovered that Instagram’s user activity rate is quickly catching up to Facebook’s activity rate. Here’s what Shareablee has discovered between Facebook and Instagram’s activity rates in Q2 2014:

• Facebook garnered 2.5 million brand posts, a year-over-growth of 22 percent
• Instagram had 493,000 of such posts, a 49 percent year-over-year jump
• Facebook accrued 6 billion actions (likes, comments or shares)
• Instagram totaled 3.4 billion actions (likes, comments)
• Facebook had 2,396 actions per post
• Instagram racked up 6,932 actions per post

Instagram’s healthy user engagement will help brands in numerous ways. Here are three major benefits:

1. Less dependency on Facebook. Facebook has recently decreased brands’ average organic reach from 12% to 6%. According to Social@Ogilvy, companies with over 500,000 likes on Facebook now only have 2.11% organic reach. Compare this to 4.04% last October. Moreover, brands on average now only have 6.15% organic reach. Compare this to 12.05% in October 2013. This decrease in Facebook organic reach means that if you have 100 Facebook fans, you could potentially reach 12 of them last October when publishing a post and only 6 today.

Fortunately, with the rise in Instagram user activity rate, you now can use the photo-sharing app to push content and engage with the target market instead of using Facebook. Currently, Instagram doesn’t have an organic reach limit, which lets you deliver content to all your followers.

2. Bigger bang for the buck. Higher Instagram user activity means you have a greater chance of reaching your audience and delivering content to them. Now when a product image is posted on Instagram, it has a better chance of being seen, commented, liked, or #regrammed by your followers.

This improvement in user engagement will help you gain a better chance of converting a sale, enhancing brand loyalty, or increasing brand exposure. Can you say “hooray”?

3. Cost-effective mobile advertising channel. Instagram lets you perform effective mobile advertising without paying for ads. According to Nielson, there were nearly 32 million unique mobile visitors to Instagram last year. This wide use of Instagram’s mobile app, alongside the increase in user engagement, lets you target remote users by publishing ad-like images.

Major consumer brands such as Topshop, Stussy, and Zara have adopted this approach by featuring vivid pictures of their accessories, flashy urban wear, or trendy suits so that shoppers can see or share the images when they’re using their mobile Instagram account.

The rise in Instagram’s user activity will help brands gain an effective channel to engage with their target audiences and reduce their dependency on Facebook, acquire higher return from advertising campaigns, and perform mobile advertising without investing in mobile ads.

Article Written By: Ray Wang