As Instagram Rolls Out Ad Platform, Brands Are Seeing Record Engagement

SEATTLE – Simply Measured, an industry leading social media analytics and reporting platform, announced that 71 percent of the world’s largest brands have adopted Instagram, which now rivals the brand adoption of Google+ and Pinterest. In the last year, the number of brands active on Instagram has increased 55 percent. Top brands are now collectively posting 70 percent more and engagement has risen nearly 350 percent year over year. The full study is available to download for free.

“Since launching two years ago, Instagram has captured the imagination of consumers, and inspired brands to embrace visual dialogue in new and creative ways”

The Simply Measured study leveraged the company’s new enterprise level Instagram reports, which allow brands to measure full campaigns. Reports include hashtag monitoring, multi-account monitoring, competitive monitoring and a complete social media snapshot.

Simply Measured’s study of Instagram found that more than half of companies among the Interbrand 100 (a list of the world’s top 100 brands) post at least once per week, and 28 percent post at least five times per week. The investment these brands are making has significantly increased the number of followers who actively engage with these companies, and led to Instagram’s launch of its new ad platform featuring sponsored images tailored to users’ interests.

As Instagram races to hit 200 million users, automotive, media and luxury brands are dominating engagement. Together, these industries account for almost 25 percent of top brands, however, they produce 59 percent of total brand posts and receive 83 percent of total likes and comments. These companies, such as MTV, Mercedes Benz and Tiffany & Co., have successfully captured their audiences by utilizing visuals they’ve created for other marketing campaigns, and promoting their content across their other social channels and digital presence.

“Since launching two years ago, Instagram has captured the imagination of consumers, and inspired brands to embrace visual dialogue in new and creative ways,” said Adam Schoenfeld, CEO of Simply Measured. “With the addition of hashtag tracking and other analytics tools, marketers can now measure which campaigns are performing the best, and double-down their efforts on deepening and expanding those relationships.”

Key findings of the Instagram study include:

• 71 percent of the Interbrand 100 use Instagram. This is up from 40 percent in October 2012. While Facebook and Twitter hold steady with 98 percent coverage, Instagram is the fastest growing social network among marketers worldwide.
• As activity increases, so do followers. 57 percent of top brand marketers are now averaging at least one post per week, up from only 38 percent in Q3 of 2012. As a result, more than one third of top brands have 10,000 followers and 19 percent enjoy audiences that exceed 100,000 followers.
• Engagement is skyrocketing. Brand engagement has grown by a staggering 350 percent year over year, due in part to a 70 percent increase in brands posting to the visual network.
• Automotive, media and luxury brands dominate. Mercedes-Benz, BMW and Audi make up three of the top five most engaging brands. In total, the top ten brands received 83 percent of all Instagram engagement, while accounting for 33 percent of all posts.
• Photos receive more comments and likes than videos. Like most new features, video adoption has been slow to gain momentum, accounting for only six percent of total posts. Meanwhile photos continue to lead the way, driving 26 percent more engagement than videos.
• Hashags have become the norm. 83 percent of Instagram posts include at least one hashtag, with 63 of the 65 active brands on Instagram using the new feature. Of interest, top brands use hashtags more sparingly than other brands.

Simply Measured’s analytics and reporting capabilities allow brands to track Instagram engagement in-context with other social media campaigns, including: most engaging photos, most engaging filters, most engaging locations, cross-posting, keyword analysis and more.

To analyze any Instagram profile for free, visit: http://simplymeasured.com/freebies/instagram-analytics.

About Simply Measured

Simply Measured brings social media analytics to life. The company’s measurement and reporting solution aggregates social media data and web analytics from more than a dozen sources and presents it in a single dashboard that is easy to access on the fly and share across a team. More than 40 unique reports can be created in real-time and pushed to familiar tools such as Excel or PowerPoint with the click of a button. Simply Measured is trusted by more than 30 percent of the top 100 global brands and more than 80,000 users. Learn more at http://simplymeasured.com.