Instagram Exceeds Half a Billion Users

Instagram recently exceeded 500 million users, with over 300 million of the users engaging with the app every day.

The notorious photo sharing platform continues to grow both locally and internationally, with more than 80% of its users residing outside of the U.S. After Facebook bought Instagram in 2012, the photo sharing network has been growing rapidly, with the most recent 100 million users joining at a much faster rate than the prior 100 million users. In addition, Instagram has over double the amount of active daily users than Twitter and Snapchat, which are both very prominent platforms of social media. This can be due to the marketing and assistance provided by Facebook, which already had over one billion users on its own.

Instagram was able to use the marketing and advertising provided by Facebook in order to spur its growth and generate business.

Instagram also converted its feed to an algorithmic-based model, which allows users to see posts based on their popularity and relevance to the user rather than chronology. The ease of sharing photos provided by Instagram allows users all over the world to connect with one another without the presence of a language barrier. This creates an atmosphere allowing people all over the world to conjoin with one another without the need for formal social  connections.

Users are able to come to Instagram for live photos and videos from events all over the world, which can allow a user to see what is going on in the moment 2000 miles away from where they are. Kevin Systrom, Instagram’s chief executive officer, stated that “it ’s all about knowing what’s happening in the world right now and coming to Instagram as a media destination.” Instagram provides people with a way of staying up to date on events going on around them, giving it to potential to further grow and attain over a billion users.