Instagram is a rapidly growing social media site, particularly among younger people:

It “is a fun and quirky way to share your life with friends through a series of pictures. Snap a photo with your mobile phone, then choose a filter to transform the image into a memory to keep around forever. We’re building Instagram to allow you to experience moments in your friends’ lives through pictures as they happen. We imagine a world more connected through photos.”

According to the company, it has 200 million million active monthly users — more than 65 percent of whom are from outside the United States; overall, 20 billion photos are shared; there are 1.6 billion daily likes; and an average of 60 million photos are uploaded per day.

Lisa Hoover McGreevy — a professional writer specializing in corporate messaging, a data journalist in the Visually Marketplace, and a regular contributor to the Visually blog notes that:

“Based on the traction Instagram is gaining among social media marketers and its ability to engage users these days, maybe it’s time to change the old adage to ‘A picture is worth 1,000 conversions.'”

“In a recent study of how users interact with brands’ social media posts, Forrester Research found that when it comes to engagement, Instagram is far superior to any other social network. While six of the seven social networks Forrester studied had an engagement rate of less than 0.1%, Instagram’s engagement rate was 4.21%. ‘That means Instagram delivered these brands 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook, and 120 times more engagement per follower than Twitter,’ wrote analyst Nate Elliott on the Forrester blog.”

As a result of Instagram’s popularity, marketers are stepping up their use of the site in their promotions. And McGreevy has written an excellent multimedia article on five companies using Instagram well: adidas, Ben & Jerry’s, Pabst Blue Ribbon, Polo Ralph Lauren, and Zappo’s.

Click the image to access McGreevy’s interactive article.