Technology

Instagram: More Addictive Than Twitter?

The Facebook-owned photo-sharing app had more users per day on mobile devices than the 140-character heavyweight, a new report says.

Does your next conference have an Instagram plan? If not, it might be time to get one.

Clearly this is a growing market, and a number of associations are using the service in fascinating ways.

According to new data from comScore and reported by AllThingsD, the mobile-only social network, which was iPhone-only until April, had 7.3 million daily active users in August. That’s more than the 6.9 million that Twitter had. While Twitter has more overall mobile users — 30 million vs. 22 million — Instagram has more addicted users.

And on top of that, the app scored an even more notable victory on the usage front. Users spent 257 minutes on Instagram in August, which tops Twitter’s 170 minutes by a wide margin.

Instagram, which will celebrate its second birthday on October 6, appears to be crushing Twitter on its home turf and may give Facebook an opportunity to build out its business on mobile. Facebook purchased the site for a reported $1 billion in April, though that total dropped to $741 million after the deal finalized.

A number of associations are using the service in fascinating ways. For example, the National Association of the Deaf organized photos tagged #NAD12 on its site for a youth leadership camp earlier this year. Attendees of the Online News Association conference tagged hundreds of photos #ona12 during the conference earlier this month.

With Instagram’s parent company a large-scale web behemoth, clearly the product isn’t going away anytime soon. How can association professionals latch onto the app as an engagement tool?

Ernie Smith

By Ernie Smith

Ernie Smith is a former senior editor for Associations Now. MORE

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