[Weekender] Instagram, the new dominant platform?

Facebook remains the king of social media for now, but its reign is not eternally secure, and evidence for this can be found in one of its own affiliates: Instagram.

A growing number of Facebook and other social media users are setting up accounts on Instagram to share their personal photos. Celebrity photos on Instagram ― often uploaded by the stars themselves ― are avidly consumed by both fans and the media. The number of Korean users is estimated at more than 4 million, the majority of them being women aged 16-36, a lucrative target group for fashion and cosmetics companies.

Facebook’s $1 billion purchase of the fledgling photo-sharing platform in 2012 seems a real bargain in retrospect. Although Instagram is still in the early stages of monetizing its data assets and its financial contribution to Facebook is minimal, Mark May, an analyst with Citigroup, said the start-up is now worth around $35 billion.

The photo-sharing network, launched by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in October 2010, has expanded at a dizzying pace over the past 4 1/2 years. In December 2014, Instagram announced that it had outpaced Twitter in terms of monthly active users, with 300 million people logging into the site every month. Its users were also 1.8 times more “engaged” than Twitter’s, according to Instagram CEO Systrom.

Another report by Washington-based Piper Jaffray suggested that the preference for Facebook and Twitter among surveyed teenagers dropped from 72 to 45 percent and 63 to 59 percent, respectively, while Instagram’s popularity went up from 69 to 79 percent.

Analysts speculate the recent shift of social media users to Instagram is largely due to “Facebook fatigue.” Unlike Instagram, Facebook comes off as an extension of offline life, and some users appear to be dissatisfied with its culture of oversharing.

“Every time I access Facebook, I encounter a host of unwanted posts shared by my Facebook friends, which is often bothersome,” said Lee Jae-kyung, a university student who has moved from Facebook to Instagram. “Instagram, however, lets me share what I really want to, with those who have mutual interests.”

Experts point out Instagram has successfully differentiated itself from other social platforms by taking advantage of the “hashtag” system, referring to labels preceded by the hash sign (#) pioneered by Twitter. Instagram’s hashtags are regarded as more reliable than Twitter’s, allowing users to share their photos more effectively.

By Hong Hye-jin (honghyejin@heraldcorp.com)