If you’ve been around or live with a teen these days, glued to their phones, you can bet that they are spending a good portion of their time scrolling through their Instagram feeds. According to research by Defy Media, 52 percent of U.S. teen Internet users are on the platform. To put that in perspective, Instagram is the second most adopted platform by the age group behind Facebook of which 71 percent of teens use.
eMarketer estimates that this year, Instagram’s proportion will move up significantly to 61.9 percent penetration and may stand to surpass Facebook’s stronghold in 2019.
But who is Instagram *more* popular with Instagram users tend to be just slightly older than young teens, as 58 percent of 15 to 17 year-olds say they use it compared to 44 percent of 13 to 14 year-olds. Instagram is also more popular among females (61 percent) than males (44 percent).
Income, is of course, also another major factor in its userbase as Instagram is primarily a mobile platform. It makes sense that Instagram would be most popular among teens with a household income of over $75k. It also makes sense for it to be second most popular for under $30k household income as the traditional notion of Internet access is changing, with the key entrypoint being mobile.
Despite Instagram’s dominance, it appears many brands are not taking advantage of the platform. Predominantly, restaurants, hotels and retailers are more keen on Instagram, but adoption rates for those brands are still barely over 30 percent {link no longer active} or below.
