Wayne Elsey — June 16, 2017 
Instagram recently surpassed the 700 million users, which is a great feat. The reason this has happened is because Instagram is owned by Facebook. And, Mark Zuckerberg understands well that he has the biggest network of users in the world. Facebook is closing in on 2 billion users.
By investing heavily in all of the Facebook products, such as Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, and including Instagram, Zuckerberg’s been able to create an ecosystem where billions of people are spending their time. This makes it exceedingly difficult for any competitor to get in and compete against the likes of Facebook and its brands, which cross promote.
If you’ve been keeping up, you know that Snapchat is the innovative kid on the block. It seems though that Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, has been aggressively duplicating its features and then enhancing them. The platform’s founders expect it to double the number of users.
Instagram Demographics
If you’re the marketing manager for your brand, you want to know the demographics of this massive platform, as noted in this article published by Omnicore.
- Females make up the majority of users at 68 percent.
- The majority of users are outside of the U.S. with only 20 percent of users being in this country.
- 20 percent of all people using the Internet are on Instagram.
- 31 percent of U.S. women and 24 percent of men use Instagram.
- 4 percent of Instagram users are between the ages of 30 and 49.
- 28 percent of users are between the ages of 18 and 29.
- Teenagers are migrating to Instagram and 17 percent say that the social media platform is the most important one to use.
Instagram Features
As I mentioned, Snapchat has been working diligently on innovation, especially around augmented reality. That’s one of the key places we know that digital trends are going. However, have no fear because Mark Zuckerberg and the team at Instagram are close on their heels and have stated they are actively working on this type of user-end feature. In the meantime, however, Instagram (and Facebook) have been seeing Snapchat’s features and, basically, copying and even improving on some.
Instagram Stories allows you to place up to 10 videos or pictures into one post, which is neat for scrolling through different takes on a scene or brand.
- Instagram Direct is its new instant messenger.
- Livestreaming through Live, which although are not permanent, can be saved on your mobile photo stream and promoted on other platforms.
- Story Ads, which you can place in Stories.
There are a several reasons why your brand should get on the Instagram train. One of the best features of Instagram that is not something that’s similar to other social media networks is that you can use up to 30 hashtags to help you increase your sphere of followers.
Although you have to pay to get the public to see your brand because organic reach is limited, it’s easy to set up a business account. If you have a real understanding of your brand and what appeals to your customers and prospects, you can have a fun time with great images and video in Instagram. We seem to have reached a tipping point with Instagram where it makes sense to place a significant focus on it.
One of the best features of Instagram that is not something that’s similar to other social media networks is that you can use up to 30 hashtags to help you increase your sphere of followers.
If you haven’t looked at Instagram yet as a primary social media tool to help you raise brand awareness, you may want to take a look at it now. The social network is now adding 100 million users every 4 months, and at that pace it could rival it’s parent company someday
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