If you’ve been following my blog, I’m sure you already know about my love for research. I’ve shared multiple research findings in the fields of social media and PR and I’ve also conducted some serious examinations in the areas myself, including my two BA dissertations, the first one about social media’s impact on PR and the second one about social media communications for sustainability.

So, staying true to my passion for data and research, today I want to show you some interesting findings about the current state of the social networks landscape and specifically about Instagram – a platform I’ve been using just for a while, but I already love.

In case you are not that familiar with Instagram, it’s a mobile social media network based entirely on visuals. So, basically you take a shot on your smartphone and you can publish it on Instagram in a square format, adding some cool image editing effects, if you want to. At the beginning, Instagram was only available on mobiles, but there’s now a website version too. You can check out my profile here to get an overview.

Instagram’s popularity has grown extremely quickly. The platform currently has over 130 million monthly active users and according to recent research by L2 Think Tank, it registers consumer engagement 18 times that of Facebook and 48 times that of Twitter. Considering that Facebook and Twitter the biggest player for brands on social media, this statistic sure is worth attention.

What does that say? Well, it’s simple: Instagram rules! :) So, companies, don’t ignore it because the rise of the visual web has come!

After examining 247 brands across 15 social platforms, the research has discovered that the other visual platforms – Vine, Pinterest and YouTube – have also grown significantly, indicating that brands should not forget to utilise the power of visual storytelling in their communications to effectively engage with their audiences.

Here are some more insights from the social platforms research:

Do you use Instagram? What potentials do you think it has for brands?

Image from Intelligence Report: Social Platforms