When it comes to social networks and how much people tend to engage with them, the two top names that come to mind are Facebook and Twitter. People spend a lot of time on things like Pinterest and Instagram, but everyone knows Facebook and Twitter as the fan favorites on the web, mainly because these are the sites that have always received the most traffic. A comScore study that was recently released, though, says otherwise. The study says that more engagement was seen on Instagram than on Twitter’s mobile service. Apparently, people are spending more time on Instagram, as well as visiting their network more often than Twitter’s mobile platform.
AllThingsD is reporting a comScore report that says Instagram trumped the mobile engagement of Twitter in August of this year. It seems odd, because of the function of the two networks. What I mean is, on Instagram, users simply take pictures and look at the ones that their friends have posted. There usually is not a huge base of friends that they follow on the network, making for less new images when returning to the app. However, on Twitter, people are often following thousands upon thousands of friends, family, celebrities, politicians, or other people of interest. The live stream of posts usually goes on for a while, and there is constantly something new, so you would think that people would be spending more of their time on Twitter than they do Instagram.
It appears, though, that in the case of mobile Instagram is getting the most attention. Here is what AllThingsD is reporting on the subject;
What’s more, the average Instagram user spent 257 minutes accessing the photo-sharing site via mobile device in August, the data claims, while the average Twitter user over the same period spent 170 minutes viewing.
This is the case despite the fact that Twitter had approximately 29 million unique U.S. smartphone-based visitors in August, while Instagram had just under 22 million (comScore measured usage across iOS, Android and BlackBerry OS devices that accessed both sites via native application as well as through the mobile Web browser). This stems from the roughly 110 million smartphone owners who live in the U.S.
It is obvious that this new-found boost in popularity for Instagram is a direct result of the massive shift to mobile that has been happening for quite some time now. Instagram, being a strictly mobile network, is a huge opportunity for Facebook, the recent acquirer of the network. If Facebook can figure out some successful way to monetize Instagram, and subsequently Facebook mobile, in an effective way, they will gain quite an intimidating lead over other mobile, social platforms. Also, with Twitter seemingly falling behind in mobile engagement, they may be in for some trouble. If they are showing signs of slipping with their mobile platform, during a time when mobile use is only going up, it can’t be good. We will just have to see if Facebook decides to take the next step with Instagram any time soon, and if they do, we will see what it means for Twitter’s mobile performance.
