Instagram, despite being a platform developed for only mobile application has caught the imagination of the users and has been growing at an increasing pace. You will now see most of the luxury brands at Instagram. Luxury brands are taking it very seriously as its users are often referred to as the rich kids of instagram. You can’t really compare it with the social media giants like Facebook, twitter and Pinterest at the moment but it is surely bridging the gap steadily. Mobile handsets are becoming smarter and the newer high end models come with most of the capabilities of a PC. It has opened up very many new opportunities for mobile applications and since the mobile is with you wherever you go, the frequency of use of these mobile applications are much higher. I will not be surprised if the trend moves towards more and more of Mobile-only platforms and applications.
Instagram Users Jumped Over 400% in Six Months
Forbes has studied the growth of Instagram closely and has been particularly impressed by the increasing pace of growth. In the beginning of 2012 Instagram had around 15 million users which has jumped to 80 million users in July 2012. And the important fact is that it is still growing at an increasing pace. If it has grown over 400% in just six months, you can well imagine what will be the annual growth figure. Another interesting aspect of the mobile-only platform highlighted by Forbes is that like Pinterest, Instagram also boasts of a higher number of female users. According to estimates made by Forbes almost 70% of Instagram users are females and since a majority of them are from the affluent class the fashion brands have become very serious about Instagram and want to leverage it to their benefit.
Half of Top Ten Brands at Instagram Are Fashion Based
A company called Simply Measured had conducted a detailed study about the new phenomenon and come up with hard numbers to highlight a definite trend. Out of the top ten brands featured on Instagram at the moment 50% or five are apparel or fashion based. The other fifty percent space in the top ten has been taken up by MTV, Starbucks, GE, Audi, and McDonalds. The fashion brands are Burberry, Nike, Gucci, Tiffany and Hermes. I have ranked them in order of the number of followers the brand has on Instagram. It is not very difficult to see why these apparel or fashion brands are luxury brands. The aspirational aesthetic that luxury brands are always trying to cultivate fits in very well with the dreamy quality of photographs on Instagram.
Via: racked
