Since Facebook purchased the filter-friendly photo app Instagram last year, brand adoption has skyrocketed, according to a new study of the top 100 brands by SimplyMeasured. Since purchase last year, the Facebook-owned Instagram has flourished. The post-purchase growth jumped 500% in just a year, going from 22 million active monthly users to nearly 100 million current active users. Brands have joined the filtered-photo migration as well, with 67% of the top 100 brands now on Instagram as of May 1st. This number jumped a whopping 14% from February 1st, making it the fastest growing social ne [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Top News

Google and Facebook combine to take up seven spots on Apple's newly-released list of the Top 25 all-time free iPhone apps. Apple published that list -- and three others -- as part of its countdown to 50 billion App Store downloads, which the company expects to happen soon. (Apple is giving away a $10,000 App Store credit to whomever completes the 50 billionth download and $500 credits to 50 others.) Those lists look at the most popular iPhone apps (free and paid) and iPad apps (free and paid). On the paid side, the majority of apps on both lists are games. But, there's more variety in th [...]

Related Topics: Apple | Apple: iOS | Apple: iPad | Apple: iPhone | Channel: Mobile Marketing | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Mobile | Google: Mobile | Mobile Marketing | Statistics: Mobile Marketing | Top News

Several notable names from the search/social/marketing industries are included on the 2013 Time 100, the magazine's annual attempt to list the most influential people in the world. There's no ranking involved -- it's not a countdown, just a collection of movers and shakers grouped together in categories like "pioneers," "titans" or "leaders." And each person on the list gets a brief essay written by a guest author -- often also someone quite influential in his/her own right. Of Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer, her former boss at Google, Eric Schmidt, says "when I think back to our time working t [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Internet Marketing Industry | Yahoo

It's been a year (exactly) since Instagram's Android app launched, and the photo-sharing app has become just about as popular on that platform as on iOS. In a short blog post marking the anniversary, Instagram's Philip McAllister says about half of all users are on Android: One year ago today we launched Instagram for Android. In less than a day, over a million people downloaded the app, and now nearly half of all Instagrammers use the Android app to share photos with friends, family and the world. That's pretty remarkable when you consider that the Instagram iOS app launched in Octo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Instagram | Mobile Marketing

Facebook has confirmed that Emily White, its Mobile Partnerships Director, is moving to a new role overseeing business development at Instagram. Her new title is Director of Business Operations, and White has already begun the transition to Instagram's team. The news was first reported by AllThingsD.com, which also reported this statement from Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom: I'm excited to bring Emily White onto the Instagram team. As we continue to scale our operation to support over 100 million active users, her experience with partnerships and business operations will play a majo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Instagram | Top News

Exciting new changes are hitting Klout today including integration with Bing search and the addition of Instagram data on user Klout scores. While Klout has integrated with Instagram previously (data has never influenced Klout scores), the Bing integration is new and can show directly on the Search Engine Results Pages. Klout + Instagram In 2011 Klout allowed doubled the number of services that users could tie into their account -- including the popular photo-sharing service Instagram. Today, Klout has announced that those filtered photos will have a direct impact on your official Klout scor [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Instagram | Klout

According to a recent mobile hashtag survey by RadiumOne, 58 percent of respondents said they use hashtags on a regular basis, and 70 percent of the hashtag users are doing so from their mobile device. RadiumOne's survey evaluated how consumers perceive, value, and use hashtags. Of the 494 survey respondents, 71 percent were female and 44 percent, middle-aged. (RadiumOne noted that while social media use is most predominant with 18 to 24-year olds, comScore credits middle-aged women as the group most responsible for growth in social media site usage.) Another key insight from RadiumO [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Google: Google+ | Mobile Marketing | Pinterest | Pinterest: Business Use & Advertising | Pinterest: Mobile | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Top News | Twitter

Instagram has hit the 100 million monthly user mark. CEO Kevin Systrom announced the milestone yesterday in a lengthy blog post that waxes poetically about Instagram's growing community. He also features a couple stories about Instagram users, highlighting the San Francisco-based Mission Bicycle, a small business with more than 42,000 followers (of course, followers are fine and good, but revenue is what matters most) and Sightglass Coffee, another San Francisco small business on Instagram. The milestone is interesting primarily in light of the dustup that Instagram faced late last ye [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Facebook: Instagram | Social Media Marketing | Statistics: Social Media

Pinterest and Instagram have become more than just a place for pretty pictures in the eyes of brands. In just three short months, top brand adoption of Pinterest and Instagram rose 10% and 9%, respectively, according to a study by SimplyMeasured. The next closest competitor, Google+ grew at just 4% during the same time period. The study focused in on the growth of Instagram, sharing usage and how the tumultuous relationship with Twitter has affected overall engagement. One of the most interesting elements of the study was a comparison of Twitter engagement on Instagram photos. Twitter [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram

Curalate has expanded beyond its Pinterest-based roots to offer Instagram-based analytics and marketing tools. In doing so, Curalate says it's the first company to combine data from both Instagram and Pinterest in a single dashboard. In a news release, Curalate says that 70 percent of social media conversations are using images, making it more important for brands and marketers to understand that images increase engagement. Among other things, the company's Instagram analytics lets users track brand images shared by Instagram users (and reply if they wish) see overall counts of fol [...]

Related Topics: Analytics | Channel: Analytics | Facebook: Instagram | Marketing Tools: Analytics | Social Media Marketing | Top News

Soon after our post about Twitter being referenced in 50% of Super Bowl commercials, and Google+ being shut-out, the Google+ defenders started complaining. Since Google+ supports hashtags, was our analysis biased toward Twitter? Nope, some further analysis shows. You can see some of the complaints in the comments to our original post, and I received a few when I shared our story to Google+ yesterday. As a result of that, I started doing some counting yesterday, to see if those hashtags really were aimed at Google or not. The 19 Brands Using Hashtags In Super Bowl Ads There were 19 brands [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Google: Google+ | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Top News | Twitter

Instagram originally launched as an iPhone-only application. Then came Android, then Web-profiles. Now, Instagram has become a social network that is more than just mobile -- thanks to the Instagram feed now hitting the Web. Users can now log-in to see all of their friends photographic activity in the Instagram feed. Much of the same functionality of the mobile version exists on the Web version of the Instagram feed. Users can double-click on a photo to like it, or comment on a photo with the in-line commenting system. Some noticeable functionality omissions, however, are the Explo [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Top News

The Baltimore Ravens just beat the San Francisco 49ers to win Super Bowl XLVII in a game that came down to the final seconds. But online, the social network showdown belonged to Twitter in a dominating win over Facebook, Google+ and all other social networks. According to my count, Twitter was mentioned in 26 of 52 national TV commercials -- that's 50 percent of the spots that aired during CBS' game coverage. Facebook was mentioned in only four of those commercials -- about eight percent. Google+, which is reportedly the No. 2 social network in the world, wasn't mentioned at all. YouTube [...]

Related Topics: Branding | Channel: Industry | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Marketing | Facebook: Pages | Features & Analysis | Google | Google: Google+ | Google: Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Social Media Marketing: Hashtags | Statistics: General | Statistics: Social Media | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Marketing

Wow, big news! Instragram has lost 25% of its daily users. A "revolt" declares the New York Post, which broke the story. But numbers seem pretty questionable and perhaps have nothing to do with the terms of service change that upset so many earlier this month. When I saw the news spreading about Instagram's drop on Techmeme, apparently a 25% drop in a matter of days, my first thought was -- how does anyone know this? Who's got data on how often I or anyone uses my Instagram account, an application that lives on two different platforms (iOS and Android). Where The Figures Come From The [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Top News

If you wondered whether Instagram's apology and revised new terms of service mollified all of the user anger out there, the answer is no. And at least one user, San Diego resident Lucy Funes, and her attorneys have filed suit, seeking class action status for their complaint. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, makes various claims related to Instagram's planned changes to its terms of service, now set to go into effect in mid-January. The complaint claims Instagram's unilateral changing of the contract between itself and its users violat [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Social Media Marketing: Advertising | Top News

Just two days after a social media storm erupted over Instagram's proposed new terms of service, the Facebook-owned company -- as promised -- has come up with revisions, in an effort to "communicate our intentions clearly." Rather than say the company's plans themselves led to the controversy, co-founder Kevin Systrom has painted it all as a misunderstanding, where poor wording in its terms caused confusion among users -- many of whom said publicly that they were deleting their accounts over the changes. The first section that people were up in arms about referred to a "non-exclusive, fu [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Legal | Features & Analysis | Top News

If you go by my Facebook and Twitter feeds, you'd think Instagram is finished -- users are packing their bags (downloading their photos using services like Instaport) and migrating to other services like Snapchat or even the venerable Flickr. This because the Facebook-owned photo-sharing service announced changes in its terms of service due to take effect in January, with some of those changes designed to allow advertisers access to the audience. Is everyone leaving Instagram before marketers get a chance to engage with them? Not likely. Since this latest Facebook-related-change panic (FR [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Acquisitions | Facebook: Advertising | Facebook: Instagram | Features & Analysis | Mobile Marketing | Top News | Yahoo: Flickr | Yahoo: Mobile

Mark Zuckerberg initiated Facebook's purchase of Instagram back in April of this year. Today,  Instagram officially "friend-ed" Facebook in its privacy policy. The new updated privacy policy will allow the two social networks to share information between the two groups. These changes will take effect on  January 2013 and will allow Instagram to "share user content and your information" including cookie-data, location data, device data and more with Facebook owned companies. This change comes on the heels of Instagram cutting off access of its photos to Twitter, just weeks be [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook | Facebook: Instagram | Facebook: Privacy | Legal: Privacy | Top News

You'll be excused if you think the social media platform battles are starting to look like something you'd see on Romper Room. The latest step in this back-and-forth is Instagram's decision to prevent its images from showing properly on Twitter's website and clients. At the LeWeb conference today, Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom confirmed the move and said that his company plans to fully prevent Instagram images from being embedded on Twitter. Here's how he's quoted on the New York Times' Bits blog: We've decided that right now, what makes sense, is to direct our users to the Instagram Web [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Industry | Facebook: Business Issues | Facebook: Instagram | Top News | Twitter | Twitter: Business Issues | Twitter: User Interface

Now bloggers and businesses have an official badge to help promote their presence on Instagram. An official blue badge can now be made that will allow users to promote their new Instagram web profiles. In order to get your Instagram badge, simply head over to the official Badges page, select your icon and copy the interactive code for your website.  The buttons are sized to fit in uniformly with all other standard traditional badges. [...]

Related Topics: Channel: Social Media | Facebook: Instagram | Top News