Instagram the preferred choice over Twitter for advertisers

For the first time advertisers have said they preferred Instagram over Twitter for their social media campaigns but Facebook trumped all, according to a survey.

A survey from Strata, part of Comcast, on Thursday asked 83 advertising agencies which was their preferred social media platform for advertising campaigns - 63% choose Instagram and 56% picked Twitter but Facebook was the first choice for 96% of advertisers.

Twitter has reportedly rejected the survey and instead accepted the Advertiser Perceptions survey carried out in 2015 which said 37% advertisers intended to buy advertisements on Twitter while 28% chose Instagram. It also said 46% were considering buying advertisements on Twitter and 41% on Instagram.

"The data presented in this survey couldn't be farther from the truth. We have close relationships with our agency clients and continue to hear that Twitter offers the most powerful creative canvas," a Twitter spokesperson said.

Twitter has been struggling lately. First quarter earnings of this year missed its numbers due to weak spending by advertisers. Sales fell to $597m from expectations of $607m. Since April stocks have fallen 15% and closed on Wednesday at $14.60. Its initial public offering price in November 2013 was $26.

Twitter is also experiencing stagnation in users and low levels of engagement. The company’s head of products Jeff Steibert left after eight months. He was initially hired to replace Kevin Weil who subsequently moved to Instagram.

Instagram, the photograph sharing application owned by Facebook, has over 200,000 advertisers compared to Twitter with 130,000. Instagram has more active users than Twitter, over 400m compared to 310m for Twitter. Instagram also uses Facebook’s advertising technology which can target specific audiences.

Jason Peterson, chief creative officer at Havas Worldwide North America, an advertising agency said: "We've had more emphasis on Instagram for the last year."

Chris Gilbert, a senior social strategist at Kettle agency said: "We're seeing almost all of our clients shifting if not all of their budgets, then most of their budgets from Twitter to Instagram. Marketers typically want to be where the audience is."