Of all the social platforms, Instagram is my personal favorite and a professional “must use”. Why? Personally, I like that the app is first and foremost about visual content and offers fewer options for inane or grumbling banter (Facebook, anyone?). I choose to follow accounts that make me happy—dogs, design, funny, food, birds, words—so that a scroll through Instagram is sure to inject smiles into my day. Professionally, I find it useful for telling compelling product stories, conveying brand personality, engaging targeted audiences, and supporting overall marketing goals.
Apparently, I’m not alone in Insta affection. According to recent stats, there are 800 million active monthly users and 500 million who access the app daily. 300 million users engage in Stories, the tool that Instagram introduced in August 2016 and immediately surpassed Snapchat’s user base. The app has 25 million business profiles according to stats from late 2017; that’s up from 8 million biz profiles just a year prior—indicating Instagram’s rapid growth. And with more than 2 million advertisers who are seeing solid sales (one report says that 74% of Insta users who’ve viewed ads on the app have made purchases), all these numbers are on the grow.