Instagram hit a significant milestone at the end of June, announcing it now has more than half a billion active users, with more than 200 million people using it at least once a day.
The app was purchased in 2012 by Facebook for $1 billion. Since its acquisition, Instagram also has launched three standalone apps: Layout, Boomerang and Hyperlapse. These three apps focus on photo collages, looped mini videos and moving time lapse videos, respectively.
Although Instagram is still focused on the still photo, the company is starting to embrace full-length videos and carve out a niche in video sharing. Instagram also started launching mobile ads on its newsfeed–in other words, it started making the big bucks.
Instagram is growing at a rate of 10 million new users every month, outpacing Facebook and Twitter whose user growth has stalled. However, Instagram is still facing a threat from competitor Snapchat. According to a USA Today article, Instagram user growth will slow down as “competition from Snapchat escalates.”
Regardless of the Snapchat threat, Instagram has a giant population that don’t show signs of stopping its app-use anytime soon. Can you answer this question: how can you use Instagram to your company’s advantage?