“We’re
proud to announce that there are now more than 300 million Instagrammers. Over
the past four years, what began as two friends with a dream has grown into a
global community that shares more than 70 million photos and videos each day”
Instagram CEO Kevin
Systrom commenting on the Instagram blog on Wednesday December 10th 2014
on achieving 300 million Active Users per month
Facebook’s US$1 billion investment in Instagram
back in 2012 is slowly showing signs of bearing fruit. I’m of course not making
reference to Minister of Youth and Culture Lisa Hanna strutting her stuff on
the beach while promoting Brand Jamaica on Instagram
as stated in the article “Lisa Hanna Sets
Off Social Media After Posting Photo In Beach Wear”, Published Sunday
December 14, 2014 5:54 pm, The Jamaica
Gleaner.
 |
Now
Instagram has announced on Wednesday
December 10th 2014 that they’ve achieved 300 million active users monthly as
stated in the article “Instagram
user base breezes past 300m mark, overtakes Twitter”, published December
11, 2014 By Trevor Mogg, Digitaltrends.
Instagram announced the milestone in a blog
post titled 300
Million: Sharing Real Moments that was a personal letter from Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom to Instagram followers that many seemed to like.
In the blog post, he made light of the achievement while briefly mentioning the
fact that Instagram had made significant
changes to the Instagram experience that
many might not have noticed:
1.
Continued deactivating spammy Instagram accounts
2.
Improved Search
3.
People
Tab on the Explore page to make it easier to follow the Accounts of the
Rich and the Famous
4.
Verified badges for celebrities,
athletes and brands, so it'll be even easier to find them
So
what’s the big deal about 300 million Active monthly users? It’s all about who
they’ve beaten and have the potential to beat in the future and Ad revenue.
Instagram’s 300 Million
Active Users – Why Teenagers and Millennials Selfie Trend is boosting Instagram
300
million Active users per month is a big deal, as it pushes them ahead of
Twitter which has some 284 Million Active users per month.
According
to statistical analyst Global Web
Index, they'd seen a 36% increase in their Active Monthly User Base over
the past six months, with a 64% increase in their overall membership as can be
seen in my blog
article entitled “Global
Web Index indicates Snapchat is King - Why Tumblr and Pinterest on the rise as
Facebook has higher engagement levels”.
 |
Both
significantly more than Twitter! It becomes glaringly obvious when you examine
the usage patterns of Instagram under the
statistical microscope.
Selfies
might be what’s making Instagram so hot as
noted in the article “Instagram
Tops 300 Million Monthly Users”, Published Monday December 15, 2014, The Jamaica Gleaner:
1.
65% of Instagram's
users are outside the US
2.
70 million photos shared daily,
increasing from the 60 million daily in 2013
3.
30 billion photos shared since Instagram's inception
Add
to that the stats provided by Research firm eMarketer:
1.
16.7% of US smartphone users use Instagram
2.
52.5 million of US smartphone users use Instagram
3.
80% between the ages of 12 and 34
Instagram also released a Hyperlapse App in
September 2014 that does great long-exposure videos, great for Social Sciences
students studying Humans over long time frames or naturalists wanting to make
their own YouTube Nature Films as predicted in my blog article
entitled “Instagram's
Hyperlapse App films Time-Lapse Videos – Apple iPhone Amateur Wildlife
Photographers filming Nature gets a boost”.
Facebook now has 1.35
Billion Active Monthly Users – Huge Boost to their advertising revenue
As
for Facebook, they're smiling all the
way to the bank, as this Active monthly users milestone means more advertising
revenue, especially when you consider that they have also purchased over WhatsApp
for US$19 billion earlier in February 2014 as noted in my blog article
entitled “Facebook
acquires WhatsApp for US$19 Billion - CEO Jan Koum Revelry will fade once faced
with BBM and Google+, Guardians of the Galaxy of Mobile Social Networks”.
Their
Active monthly user totals appear as follows:
1.
500 million for Facebook Messenger
2.
600 million for WhatsApp
3.
300 million for Instagram
4.
1.35 billion users across all these
Social Media Platforms
So
does this mean Twitter is beaten? Far from it; Twitter is STILL the king of
News and is the main way I get my News-fix, with Facebook as my Groupie hangout spot online
as noted in my blog
article entitled “Introducing
Facebook Groups App – How to connect to your Facebook Groups on your Smartphone
or Tablet”.
It’ll
be interesting to see if Instagram can
surpass Pinterest and Tumblr, currently the No. 1 and No. 2 in terms of Active
monthly user growth as well as overall membership growth based on the stats of
statistical analyst Global Web Index.
Now
that would be a real milestone worth celebrating!
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