Image emporium Instagram growing

When Instagram was introduced five years ago, 400 million users seemed like a dream. This week however that dream came true. In a blogpost Instagram shared the milestone of 400 million users. Instagram seems to be the right social media for many users, short messages, images and an interesting worldwide audience.

75% of this impressive number of users is from outside the USA. More than half of the latest 100 million users lives in Europe and Asia. Brazil, Japan and Indonesia have the most Instagram users. Together the users share more than 80 million photos a day. According to Instagram the photos are inspirational pictures from all over the world; from the first images of Pluto, the Champions League parties or a Namibian desert city. Many celebrities are part of the network, some of them with millions of followers. It is a great way to control their social narrative. Pop singer TS@TaylorSwift has an astounding 47.8 million followers. Kim Kardashian is second with 46.9 million followers. The two celebs have very different profiles. Reality queen Kim mainly posts sexy selfies, singer Taylor gives an insight into her life with images of her concerts, her cats and her many friends, who of course are famous themselves. The latest famous joiners are David Beckham, Caitlyn Jenner and German footballer Toni Kroos.

With the explosive growth in users the Facebook platform grows likewise. Instagram was acquired by Facebook in 2012 for 1 billion US$. Facebook has about 1.5 billion users of which 1 billion use Facebook daily, according to founder Mark Zuckerberg. With the growth of Instagram the emporium has an amazing playing field in online communication – don´t forget the acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook in 2014! Instagram grew significantly in 2015. In 2014 the number of active users was ´only´ 300 million. Especially amongst young people Instagram is very popular, it adds value to their online lifestyle: many photos, many celebs, interesting but short pieces of information and especially: less older (parents!) users than on Facebook.
Breaking news: Blokboek has their own Instagram. Search for ´blokboek´ and you will find inspirational posts about all things communication!