Research: Less than One-Quarter of Brands Utilize Instagram, Despite it Being the Fastest Growing Social Platform

PORTLAND, Ore., March 17, 2015 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Just 23 percent of brands actively include Instagram as part of their social marketing strategy. This is despite the fact that, overall, brands on Instagram are acquiring new followers at more than twice the rate of other social platforms.

Yesmail, the digital marketing services provider within Yes Lifecycle Marketing, recently researched the use of social platforms by more than 2,000 brands using its proprietary tool, Yesmail Market Intelligence. They discovered brands utilizing Instagram saw a 278 percent growth in followers in 2014. For example, retailers included in the research on average observed an 8 percent increase of followers per month, double the rate of other social platforms.

Of the brands analyzed, 80 percent have Facebook pages; 82 percent are active on Twitter; 60 percent engage on YouTube; and more than a third of brands have a Google+ profile. Brand adoption of Instagram seems to happen at a substantially lower rate. As an example, when brands promote themselves via three social channels, just 12 percent include Instagram as part of their social marketing strategy. If brands add a fourth channel, the number of brands employing Instagram jumps to 37 percent. If five, that number jumps to 47 percent.

"It surprises me that more brands are not developing their presence on Instagram," said Michael Fisher, president, Yes Lifecycle Marketing. "With over 300 million users and 70 million photos and videos shared daily, by not investing in a social strategy that includes Instagram brands are missing a sizeable opportunity to further engage with their customers."

The data from Yesmail Market Intelligence does, however, indicate a trend that brands in some industries are adopting Instagram more quickly than others. According to Yesmail's research, 31.1 percent of these brands analyzed are restaurants. However, with 86 percent of these same restaurants utilizing Facebook and Twitter, their use of Instagram is still comparatively low. Adoption of Instagram by hotels runs a close second at 30.8 percent; and retailers and CPG trail with 23 percent and 16 percent respectively.

"Instagram is a great way for brands to increase consumer engagement," said Fisher. "Although no industry has fully embraced Instagram, brands would be smart to create a presence on the platform to ensure competitive advantage and reap the benefits of Instagram's high follower growth rates."

To learn more about Yesmail Market Intelligence and get an instant view of your competitor's digital channel strategy, as well as major digital industry trends, click here.

About Yesmail

Yesmail, Yes Lifecycle Marketing's email marketing solutions provider, powers intelligent customer interactions.  We define ourselves by a better caliber of technology, unmatched insights, and skilled services experts that help our clients get to 'YES' sooner with their customers. As a leading email services provider, we seamlessly integrate email, mobile, web, and social channels, enabling the world's best known brands to use data-driven insights to create meaningful connections with their customers in real-time. For more information, visit www.yesmail.com.

About Yes Lifecycle Marketing

Yes Lifecycle Marketing is a solution provider that brings together multichannel marketing platforms and data, with creative and strategy services honed on the optimization of delivering relevant marketing messages. This gives marketers the ability to source best-of-breed technology and creative and strategy services from a single vendor at a cost-effective price point. For more information, visit www.yeslifecyclemarketing.com.