According to a report from the Pew Research Center, Instagram is the second-most-popular social media platform among African-Americans and Latinos in the U.S. Facebook remains the most used social media platform across the board, according to Pew Research Center's study looking at the demographics of key social networking platforms.
The Pew study found that 38 percent of black, non-Hispanic adults and 34 percent of Latino adults on the Internet use Facebook’s photo sharing service Instagram, as opposed to only 21 percent of white adult Internet users.
Instagram as a platform has seen steady growth in recent years, as another Pew study shows that overall use of the app jumped by nine percentage points from 2013 to 2014. With the increase in users—a significant portion of which are African-American and Latino—the importance of the platform for reaching valuable audiences cannot be understated.
According to a study by the University of Georgia Terry College of Business, black and Latino buying power in 2014 was $1.1 trillion and $1.3 trillion, respectively. For communicators looking to work in this lucrative market, Instagram may be the difference in a campaign’s success or failure.
While the use of certain social platforms is rife with variations depending on geography, age and race, it’s important to remember that Facebook remains enthroned at the top regardless of who you are or where you come from. Facebook outpaces other social media by far across all tested demographics, scoring 71 percent of all adult Internet users, according to the Pew study.