The Most Popular and Active News Brands on Instagram

Now that Instagram web profiles have been around for a few months I thought I’d check in on the participation and activity of major news brands.

I keep coming across things like the Simply Measured study showing that 59% of top brands are now active on Instagram and the news that Instagram has surpassed 100 million active users. So it seems like a good time for media organizations to take stock of their efforts on the photo sharing site.

(Yes, there was also the recent backlash over privacy and the terms of service that prompted Instagram to backtrack, but that’s another topic).

Instagram may be a better fit for lifestyle publishers like the sites I covered in my posts on StumbleUpon traffic declines, Pinterest traffic gains and links from Pinterest. But today I thought I’d focus on news organizations.

So I took a look at the Instagram profiles of major news sites, starting with the group I compared in my post on Google+ engagement. This is not intended to be a comprehensive list, but it provides a good cross-section of print, broadcast and Web-only media organizations.

Not all of those news sites are on Instagram at this time, so I removed several and added a few others that I’d come across. If I’ve left out any particularly active media outlets please let me know.

For each profile I captured the three available data points: photos, followers and following.

Looking at follower counts is not particularly instructive since these figures quickly become outdated. But it offers a basic snapshot that allows for a relative comparison. And the larger the audience the greater the opportunity for impressions and engagement, so total followers does have some value.

In addition the photos and following counts give a rough sense of which news sites are most active in terms of posting and interacting with others.

Here are the news brands ranked by total followers:

	Instagram Profile	Followers	Photos	Following
1	NBC News	316,012	666	159
2	TIME	275,415	438	63
3	NPR	239,435	294	437
4	CNN iReport	233,731	519	5,931
5	Wired	113,209	790	65
6	The Huffington Post	88,951	119	57
7	The Wall Street Journal	77,360	357	63
8	Washington Post	66,969	167	391
9	Breaking News	65,471	84	339
10	National Post	52,325	414	4,726
11	Mashable	47,628	273	294
12	New York Magazine	46,488	39	198
13	USA TODAY	26,374	365	2,426
14	PBS NewsHour	19,241	312	108
15	TechCrunch	17,608	128	0
16	CNET	16,729	108	15
17	Sky News	12,902	0	19
18	Reuters	11,741	417	50
19	The Daily Beast	10,503	350	92
20	CNN	9,515	1	18
21	Chicago Tribune	5,825	259	387
22	msnbc	2,680	142	21
23	Forbes	1,984	154	21
24	AllThingsD	1,403	77	28
25	Al Jazeera English	1,012	125	2
26	CBS News	679	11	23
27	Financial Times	407	18	210
28	CNBC	406	75	60
29	BBC News	380	0	0
30	The Verge	347	0	0
31	New York Post	316	0	1
32	Slate	299	35	35
33	CBC News	237	96	38
34	ABC News	211	0	0
35	The Boston Globe	129	3	28
36	Yahoo! News	53	2	14
37	The Next Web	52	0	4
38	The Independent	33	2	4
39	ReadWriteWeb	16	1	20

NBC News leads the pack by a considerable margin, with TIME, NPR and CNN iReport also doing well.

Only the top five profiles have more than 100,000 followers, and only the top 19 have more than 10,000.

Wired wins the prize for most photos shared with 790, and CNN iReport, National Post and USA Today are following the most other users by far.

A number of sites have essentially set up placeholder profiles that have little or no activity. Interestingly Sky News has attracted 12,000+ followers despite not having shared a single photo.

Noticeably absent were media outlets like The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Fox News, The Guardian, Mail Online and Business Insider.

If I missed any of those profiles please let me know. I was unable to find them using what seemed like all the logical profile name possibilities. Several of the brand names are being used by individuals with no affiliation.

Have Fun with the Photos

I may do another post on the types of photos the news sites are sharing and what seems to be working.

In the meantime I just wanted to point out that I like what NPR is doing with their “I Love NPR” signs, like this one with the Downton Abbey cast: