Instagram Surpasses Twitter in Monthly Active Users for the First Time
Skift Take
Instagram, the four-year-old mobile-first photo- and video-sharing platform, just hit a milestone for its community.
Twitter currently has 284 million Monthly Active Users (MAUs) while Instagram reported that it has over 300 million MAUs. Although Instagram's community is still smaller than its parent company, Facebook, and its video competitor, YouTube, it's growing the fastest in 2014. Currently, Facebook has 1.35 billion MAUs and YouTube is at 1 billion Monthly Unique Visitors. To put it into perspective, Facebook is ten years old, YouTube is nine years old, and Twitter is eight.
Besides having the highest user growth rate among these three platforms, Instagram also has the most engaged community. According to Forrester, 4.21% of brands' total followers have engaged with their content in comparison to 0.03% and 0.07% of brands' total followers on Twitter and Facebook, respectively. This is one of the major reasons why brands are flocking to this network to reach consumers.
These figures will change dramatically in 2015 because Instagram also announced that it will eliminate spambots forever -- so to speak, as nothing is really is deleted in the digital world -- which will decrease total follower count. They are attempting to cultivate a human and brands-turned-human network.
An average of 70 million photos are uploaded to Instagram every day, and these photos are by and large uploaded with no filter. When looking at the top three most popular brands on SkiftIQ with the most engaged communities -- National Geographic Travel, Tourism Australia, and Walt Disney World Resorts -- photos and videos are uploaded 90% of the time, and the remaining are Lo-fi, Rise, and Earlybird filtered.
Here's a quick look at the largest and most active brands and influencers in travel by Instagram metrics and the most popular content from as tracked by SkiftIQ.
Note: SkiftIQ tracks the social media efforts of over 2,700 travel brands.
Top Travel Brands by Instagram Followers:
| Instagram Accounts | Followers |
|---|---|
| natgeotravel | 1,486,935 |
| australia | 996,039 |
| fosterhunting | 972,278 |
| waltdisneyworld | 813,756 |
| anthonybourdain | 400,281 |
| usinterior | 386,060 |
| travelandleisure | 322,080 |
| lonelyplanet | 210,444 |
| richardbranson | 200,946 |
| tsa | 194,832 |
Source: SkiftIQ
Fastest Growing Travel Brands on Instagram:
| Instagram Accounts | Followers/Day |
|---|---|
| natgeotravel | 7,378 |
| waltdisneyworld | 3,302 |
| australia | 1,765 |
| travelandleisure | 1,251 |
| anthonybourdain | 1,179 |
| travelalberta | 843 |
| tsa | 607 |
| usinterior | 566 |
| cntraveler | 564 |
| explorecanada | 534 |
Source: SkiftIQ
Top Travel Brands by Total Likes on Instagram:
| Instagram Accounts | Likes |
|---|---|
| australia | 60,260,987 |
| natgeotravel | 35,842,084 |
| fosterhunting | 13,367,446 |
| waltdisneyworld | 10,766,486 |
| usinterior | 9,679,922 |
| travelandleisure | 5,384,206 |
| zachspassport | 4,163,912 |
| puremichigan | 4,020,837 |
| chefaz | 4,012,540 |
| cntraveler | 2,930,390 |
Source: SkiftIQ
Top travel brands by Total Likes/Total Media on Instagram:
| Instagram Accounts | Likes/Media |
|---|---|
| waltdisneyworld | 23,204 |
| natgeotravel | 16,359 |
| australia | 15,428 |
| anthonybourdain | 8,007 |
| usinterior | 6,445 |
| fosterhunting | 5,341 |
| puremichigan | 4,232 |
| travelandleisure | 2,926 |
| zachspassport | 2,566 |
| airbnb | 2,507 |
Source: SkiftIQ
Increasingly, travel photos has become huge on Instagram. Here are the most popular content from the top performing travel brands as of 12/10/14:
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