Instagram service grows compared to Twitter

The 140-character social network already sees Instagram in the rearview mirror. According to a new survey by the Pew Research center, Twitter and Instagram target the same audience and are used by a similar percentage of adult Internet users. Specifically, the survey shows that 18% of adults who connect to the Internet in the US use Twitter, while 17% already use Instagram. The research firm found that almost three quarters, 73%, of the 1,445 Internet users over 18 years old surveyed are social network users. As expected , Facebook remains the leader, with 71%, up from 67% at the end of 2012. LinkedIn, with 22%, and Pinterest, with 21%, occupy second and third place, respectively. As for the audience, the Pew report concludes: “Twitter and Instagram have a special appeal for younger adults, city dwellers and non-whites. And there is substantial overlap between the user bases of Twitter and Instagram”. Given this data, Twitter may have a big problem with Instagram, which it tried to buy before it was acquired by Facebook. Theoretically , Twitter and Instagram can coexist with overlapping audiences that use both services. But Twitter, which needs to increase its profits to appease its investors, counts among its most important assets influential users (that is, celebrities) and the map of all the people and interactions on the social network. This map is what makes Twitter valuable to advertisers, and its value will erode if Instagram can create similar interactions and keep its audience more engaged. And that is where the other problem lies. Instagram users are more active than Twitter users. According to the survey, around 57% of Instagram users visit the service at least once a day, and 35% do so several times a day. In comparison, only 46% of Twitter users are daily visitors, with 29% using it several times a day, reports CNET. As if that were not enough, earlier this month, Nielsen ranked Instagram above Twitter on its list of 10 smartphone applications. On smartphones, Instagram has a monthly average audience of 32 million people, while Twitter's is 30.8 million people, according to Nielsen data. Instagram has also had the fastest growth among applications this year, when its audience has increased 66% year-over-year. If this trend continues, Instagram could become more popular than Twitter, and more attractive to advertisers next year.