Dive Brief:

• Instagram’s reach is on the rise per eMarketer – a more than 30% increase in users this year and projected to reach more than 55% of the total social media network by 2019.
• This rise has been ascribed, at least in part, to an increase in interest from fashion brands.
• In the second quarter of this year Instagram passed Twitter’s usage by fashion brands, but still trails its parent company, Facebook.

Dive Insight:

Within the social media world, Instagram is on the rise according to eMarketer. U.S. users are expected to reach 77.6 million this year, an increase of 20.9%, and will hit more than 111 million by 2019. Research from L2 Think Tank indicates at least some of this growth is coming from fashions brands taking an increased interest in Instagram. From Q2 2015 to the same period this year U.S. fashion brands utilizing the platform increased 11% getting that engagement to a reach of 96%, surpassing Twitter’s 94% reach, but still trailing Instagram’s parent company, Facebook, and its 99% fashion brand reach.

At the same time L2 Think Tank’s research found a falling organic search reach on Facebook, one reason why fashion brands could be moving toward Instagram to hopefully be able to organically reach their audience. An Iconosquare polling cited by eMarketer shows 62% of global users are likely to follow a brand on Instagram if they already have a connection with it and 54% said they would follow a brand for discovery-purposes.

According to eMarketer, the same Iconosquare poll found, "A close percentage said they followed brands that they already followed on another social network."

This presents positive implications for marketers both new to social and those making a leap from other social media to Instagram.