Instagram: More Addictive Than Twitter?

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

According to new data from comScore and reported by AllThingsD  (opens in a new tab), 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  (opens in a new tab) 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  (opens in a new tab) on its site for a youth leadership camp earlier this year. Attendees of the Online News Association conference tagged hundreds of photos #ona12  (opens in a new tab) 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?