If there’s one thing that can be said about change in general, it’s that few people are likely to accept it right out of the gate. There are so many concerns to take into mind when there’s a strong entity and there’s a chance of alterations being made. Is the entire interface going to be changed akin to a grocery store swapping the places of cereal and pasta? Are users going to have to pay for a previously free service?
If there’s one thing that can be said about change in general, it’s that few people are likely to accept it right out of the gate. There are so many concerns to take into mind when there’s a strong entity and there’s a chance of alterations being made. Is the entire interface going to be changed akin to a grocery store swapping the places of cereal and pasta? Are users going to have to pay for a previously free service?
One cannot deny that there was an outcry last year in April when Facebook acquired Instagram. Users enjoyed the nature of sharing photos and they believed that this change in ownership would wind up creating problems that weren’t there to begin with.
It was even said that Instagram’s user base would drop off faster than a business with the poorest online reputation management strategy in existence. However, what these individuals did not consider was the idea of growth in the long run.
Fast forward almost one year and a half later and it has been announced that Instagram expanded to 150 million users. For further statistics, 128 million users were gained since Facebook acquired the website, 50 million of those fans being acquired in the past six months alone. This is tremendous, to say the least, especially when Twitter announced its acquisition of 200 million users seven years after it launched. Instagram, at 150 million, is less than half of Twitter’s age.
It’s important to look at Instagram after being acquired and determine why exactly it achieved that level of growth. First of all, it is worth taking into consideration that it is now under the ownership of one of the most powerful entities in Facebook. With that kind of backing, it doesn’t take a social media guru to make the connection that it could do well. Instagram was already a budding site beforehand but this event took it to a higher level, as evidenced by the surge in user activity.
In addition, Instagram hasn’t changed much since April of 2012, which was the arguably the greatest fear that users had. It’s very likely that Tumblr users felt the same way when Yahoo acquired the microblogging site in question during May. Even after Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer made the claim that there will be no outrageous changes made to Tumblr, Yahoo branding being one such example, the Tumblr community as a whole wasn’t silenced. Almost four months later without such alterations made, concerns have since been put to rest for the most part. In Instagram’s case, the “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” cliché fits like a glove on a hand and Facebook recognized this.
Do you see Instagram – facilitated by Facebook – reaching 200 million users or even more before it reaches seven years like Twitter? Leave your thoughts on the story below!
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