Digiday+ Research: Facebook and Instagram volley for dominance in brand marketing on Meta

Interestingly, though, whether Facebook or Instagram comes out on top changes on a regular basis, according to Digiday+ Research surveys conducted among brand and retailer professionals every six months since 2023.

Before digging into Digiday’s data specific to Facebook and Instagram, let’s talk briefly about social media’s strength among marketing channels.

Digiday’s Q1 2025 survey found that social media is the most-used marketing channel among brands. Ninety-eight percent of brand and retailer pros said their companies currently use social media as a marketing channel, with display ads coming in a distant second at 83%.

Naturally, then, Digiday’s survey found that social media also came out on top when it comes to where brands are spending their marketing dollars and how confident they are that social media drives marketing success. Seventy-nine percent of brand and retailer pros told Digiday that social media is one of the two marketing channels where they spend the highest portion of their companies’ marketing budget, followed by display ads at 53%. And 75% of brands and retailers said social media is one of the two channels in which their companies are most confident that they drive marketing success, followed, again, by display ads at 58%.

In other words, social media is the marketing channel that brands use the most by far, where they spend the most by far and in which they have the most confidence by far.

And, among the numerous social media platforms brands use for marketing, Meta platforms Facebook and Instagram have historically been at the top of the list, regardless of how much press competitors like TikTok, YouTube and X have gotten over the years. But, according to Digiday’s surveys, which Meta platform is at the top has been an ongoing back-and-forth.

This year, for example, Instagram is the most-used social media platform among brands, followed by Facebook. Ninety-six percent of brand and retailer pros told Digiday in Q1 2025 that their companies currently use Instagram, compared with 86% who said the same of Facebook.

However, six months ago it was a different story: 98% of brands and retailers said in Q3 2024 that they used Facebook, compared with 95% who said the same of Instagram. And six months before that, it was also different: 96% of brands said in Q1 2024 that they used Instagram, while 93% said they used Facebook.

Digiday’s surveys found that brands’ marketing spend on the two platforms reflects this historic back-and-forth.

Take brands’ spending on Facebook, for example: In Q1 2023, 27% of brand and retailer pros told Digiday their companies spent a large or very large portion of their marketing budget on the platform. In Q3 2023, that percentage fell to 23%, then rose to 36% in Q1 2024, then fell again to 23% in Q3 2024, before rising to 29% in Q1 2025.

It’s a similar pattern for the brands who spend a very small or small portion of their marketing budgets on Facebook: That percentage was 15% in Q1 2023, 36% in Q3 2023, 26% in Q1 2024, 43% in Q3 2024 and 30% in Q1 2025.

Overall, brands are bigger spenders on Instagram than they are on Facebook, but the spending patterns on Instagram are still quite inconsistent. For instance, 46% of brand and retailer pros said in Q1 2025 that their companies spend a large or very large portion of their marketing budget on Instagram, that’s up from the 41% who said the same in Q3 2024, which is down from the 54% who said the same in Q1 2024, which is up from the 33% who said the same in Q3 2023.

And, again, the pattern is similar on the other side of the scale: 18% of brands and retailers said in Q1 2025 that they spend a very small or small portion of their marketing budget on Instagram, down from 36% in Q3 2024, up from 17% in Q1 2024, down from 26% in Q3 2023 and up from 24% in Q1 2023.

If you need further proof of this back-and-forth between Meta’s big two platforms, just take a look at the ups and downs in the chart below.

However, looking at how brands see both Facebook and Instagram when it comes to driving conversions and branding, Instagram’s future does seem brighter than Facebook’s — most notably because brands rank Instagram as the best social platform for both of those things.

For instance, 42% of brand and retailer pros told Digiday in Q1 2025 that Instagram is the best social platform for driving conversions. Facebook came in second, but by a wide margin, with 33% of brands and retailers choosing Facebook as the best platform for driving conversions.

And Instagram blows its older Meta sibling out of the water when it comes to branding: 64% of brands and retailers said in Q1 of this year that Instagram is the best social platform for branding. Just 9% said the same of Facebook, putting it in fourth place for branding behind YouTube (at 13%) and TikTok (12%).

What’s more, the 64% of brand pros who said Instagram is the best social platform for branding is actually a big jump from a year ago, when 55% of brand and retailer respondents to Digiday’s survey said Instagram is best for branding.