New Report Highlights Social Media Benchmarks

By Brittany Siminitz | February 10, 2025

If you use social to drive business, it’s good to know which platforms offer the most potential for success. Do you ever feel you should be getting more likes on Facebook, for example, and wonder if you’re the only one? Or does it seem like your Stories are getting good engagement on Instagram but your feed posts aren’t—and is this normal?

With changes in algorithms, edits, and cultural movements potentially having an impact on social media and some users jumping ship, an extensive new report from Social Insider provides helpful insights along with suggestions for making the most of your efforts on each social app.

Social Insider analyzed data on 125 million social media posts in 2023 and 2024 for the report, which identifies benchmarks in engagement rates, impressions, likes, comments, shares, and posting frequency across Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and X.

If it’s engagement you’re looking for, TikTok is the best place to get it, according to the report. “TikTok has solidified itself as the king of organic engagement, with an average engagement rate of 2.5%,” it says. “The platform’s superior engagement values highlight how TikTok’s algorithm continues to prioritize highly engaging content, rewarding posts that drive conversations and shares.”

Ranking second for engagement is Instagram, though its engagement rate has dropped 28% year-over-year, according to Social Insider’s report. (It remained stable on TikTok.) The report goes on to state that more people are seeing content on Instagram, but fewer are interacting with it—pointing to an algorithm that prioritizes reach over deep engagement.

While the report suggests Instagram alone is not enough for users concerned with engagement, it says Instagram performs well with organic reach, and Reels and Stories are major drivers of growth. As for Facebook and X, Social Insider says these platforms may still be valuable for certain audiences but they require paid strategies to achieve meaningful results. The report also suggests tactics to boost engagement on social media, and its No. 1 tip is “off-platform”: Consider newsletters as a top priority.

In terms of likes—which don’t necessarily offer much engagement but can indicate a post’s relevance and help gauge audience sentiment—TikTok is also king, earning nine times more likes than Instagram. Likes have increased 30% year-over-year on TikTok, while Facebook remains stagnant in likes, and X is the weakest in the category, according to the report.

It’s important to note that a drop in likes doesn’t necessarily mean the content isn’t being seen or appreciated—users might be engaging with it in different ways, such a saving it or sending it to others via DMs.

Comment rates are another important metric for engagement, and once again TikTok is in the lead, with its average number of comments per post up 73% increase year-over-year. to 66 comments. Instagram averages 24 comments per post—still relatively strong.

Facebook, however, has seen a decline in comment activity, from 20 comments per post to 17. The report says that Facebook users may be engaging more in private groups than on public posts. X, meanwhile, gets almost no comments per post on average, though the platform is often more about real-time engagement and conversation.

So, overall, it seems TikTok—despite its murky future—remains the top social platform for reaching and engaging with followers, with Instagram just behind. One point really stands out in the Social Insider report, though, and that’s the suggestion to invest in newsletters. Even for a short time, email marketing could be a lifeline to consumers.

(Image via Social Insider)