Why Is Instagram So Popular?

We Asked Active Users to Explain

By James Cole

With 1 billion monthly active users as of June, 2018, Instagram is undoubtedly one of the
most popular social networking apps in the world. So why is Instagram so popular?
Launched in 2010, Instagram has grown rapidly, trampling competitors like Snapchat and
Twitter along its way by adopting new features and evolving fast. Today, the Facebook-owned
company is the go-to app for people who prefer communicating through visual means primarily
on their phones. Below, we take a look at what makes Instagram so undeniably popular among
people old and young.

Here’s why Instagram is so popular

1. Instagram works really well on mobile.
Let’s face it: More and more people prefer to do things from their smartphones rather than a
desktop or laptop computer or even a tablet. We’re a mobile society now, and Instagram is an
app designed for your mobile phone. In fact, the app’s features are limited on the desktop
version, further incentivizing users to log in from their phones rather than their computers.

2. Instagram is an image first app.

People are highly responsive to imagery. We prefer to interpret visual information over digesting
written words or audible cues. This is why visual marketing (and, in particular, influencer
marketing) has been taking off in recent years. It is also why Instagram is so popular. On
Instagram, the images take center stage. In fact, captions are cut off in the main feed after a
certain word count, rendering them secondary to the photographs displayed.

In our survey of Instagram super users, 70 percent of the 500 respondents confirmed that an
Instagram caption, while important, is NOT the main driving force behind a successful post.

If you’re wondering what type of imagery will work best on Instagram, in terms of engagement,
72% claim that portrait photography is the way to go, with landscape photography ranking a
distant second (14%). Only 13% reported that selfies drive the most engagement on their
accounts. Group photos ranked last.

Images are so critical to Instagram’s top accounts that a whole crop of third party editing apps
have ridden Instagram’s coattails in gaining popularity over the last decade. Both free and paid-
for photo editing apps have risen in popularity among Instagram users eager to improve their
Insta game by adopting an Instagram theme or simply posting more beautiful, eye-catching
images. According to our data, 53% of survey respondents ALWAYS use a third party editing
app when posting to Instagram.