59% Of Top Brands Now On Instagram

Simply Measured, the social media analytics team, has put together another quarterly report of brands’ adoption of Instagram. Let’s take a look at some of the results!

Right before Instagram announced they’d hit the 100 million user mark, Simply Measured released their newest quarterly report on the adoption of Instagram by brands.

The last time they reported about brands using Instagram last November, 54% of the Interbrand Top 100 had adopted the photosharing service. The increase to 59% doesn’t seem too substantial, but several other results of Simply Measured’s study are quite interesting.

Instagram’s changes
Instagram has made some alterations to their platform that are beneficial for higher user engagement and brand adoption.

Web profiles were introduced, making it easier for brands to show their feeds to people who aren’t on Instagram (yet), and more recently Web feeds, giving users a whole other way to engage with content.

Has this had any positive consequences for brands adopting Instagram?

According to Simply Measured, the percentage of engagement with the Top 100 brands that are on Instagram has increased by 35% in the last three months. This is a direct consequence of a growing percentage of followers (+41% = 1.6 million followers) for each of these brands, which has increased to 5.8 million followers.

The top 10 brands on Instagram account for 80% of the total engagement, as opposed to 92% last November. This means that more brands are engaging with their followers at the moment, not just the top 10 brands.

This could mean that the introduction of web profiles and feeds had a positive impact on the amount of brands on Instagram, and the amount of engagement with these brands.

Twitter vs. Instagram War
When the Instagram team pulled their support for Twitter cards in December last year, many brands feared it would harm the opportunities to engage with their fans.

Simply Measured spent a separate part of the study on Twitter engagement, and found out engagement per Instagram photo on Twitter slightly decreased. Since mid-December, engagement on Twitter has been at its lowest point since August 2012.

My Opinion?
All in all, with all the changes Instagram has undergone, the increase in amount of brands that jumped on the Instagram bandwagon hasn’t slowed down compared to last year.

This is good news, considering the backlash as a response to Instagram changing their Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. It was feared that many users and brands alike would delete their Instagram accounts, but this doesn’t seem to have happened.

We’ve seen that sharing Instagram photos on Twitter will give you less engagement on Twitter itself, but the followers who do click on the link will be brought to your Instagram web feed, which will give them a better opportunity to see your feed in its entirety, instead of seeing just one photo.

Maybe in the end, Instagram pulling their support for Twitter cards will be more beneficial for brands this way.

I think Instagram will keep growing the way it is doing now. As I see it, brands cannot afford to keep ignoring a social platform that has reached more than 100 million users in a little over 2 years, especially cause smartphone use will continue to grow in the years to come.

However, think about your objectives: does Instagram fit into your marketingmix? If it does: go for it!

Read the entire report here.

What About You?
What do you think of this study? Do you think Instagram will continue to grow as it is doing now?

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About the author
Marion aan ‘t Goor is a Social Media Consultant at Share Force One. You can connect with Marion via Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.