Every second person you meet these days seems to be roaming around with a DSLR camera or a smartphone with atleast 10-13 megapixel. Check their Facebook accounts and you will find most of them claim to be photographers. This new trend has given rise to the popularity of online photo and video sharing websites like Instagram even in India. Irrespective of their age and profession, most people nowadays have an account on Instagram where they upload pictures, and share precious moments with their friends and others. It has its own trademark photo editing filters and frames that add a new dimension to the quality of photographs- this attracted most of India’s self proclaimed photographers.
Instagram – The New Thing in Social Networking
Instagram is an application that will allow you to edit the pictures you click, and share them with your followers. Instagram app was created in 2010 and its popularity has been rising among users of smartphones since then. Be it your iPhone, Android or Windows phone, Instagram will be an instant hit if you are social network savvy. This new application has added a whole new perspective to the social networking scenario.
How to get started?
All you need to do is download the app free of any cost from Google Play, App Store or Android Market in order to get started. The app is designed to sync your contacts automatically from your phone’s address book or your Facebook friendlist. Thus, finding your friends is extremely easy here. If you follow a certain user, you will have access to the photos and videos he/she uploads.
Video sharing
Besides photos, you can now also share videos to your friends and followers. This feature was incorporated into their platform on June 20, 2013. Instagram had released a video component of 15 seconds on this day in response to Twitter’s Vine. Within the first 24 hours, 5 million videos were uploaded by users worldwide. This feature functions much like its photograph counterpart with filters for editing. This new feature is definitely responsible for more number of downloads of the Instagram app.
Instagram Usage
A recent study conducted on the level of engagement among users of various social networking sites shows that the popularity of Instagram is only second to that of Facebook. The study concluded that 57% of Instagram users were found to check their accounts every day compared to 63% of Facebook users. It also showed that 53% of Instagram users checked their profiles more than once daily as opposed to 40% of Facebook users. This is why, a lot of Indian brands ( existing as well as upcoming ones) are using Instagram to establish their brand identity and create an awareness about their brand and the products, through visual content.
Time spent on Instagram
On an average, it was noted, Instagram users roughly spent 257 minutes a month on the website. That is a little more than 4 hours! So next time you post a picture, make sure it is worth your audience’s time.
Demographic usage on Instagram
Women seem to be more inclined on taking photos and sharing them with their friends on Instagram. 68% of the users are found to be females. However, this may vary according to your country or your audience’s geographic location. For instance, in the Middle East and India, the number of male users exceeds that of female users by a considerable margin.
Engagement Levels
Instagram’s popularity among fellow Indians only seems to be increasing with every passing day. Back in September 2013, Instagram had released its target of 150 million active users.
