A study from Seattle-based social media analytics startup Simply Measured makes it clear that if your company isn’t on Instagram, you’re certainly late to the party.

Of the Interband top 100 brands, 54 percent are now using the Facebook-owned photo sharing app, which is a relative increase of 35 percent from last quarter. The study notes that though Instagram still trails the other big four (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and Google+) in total brand adoption, it is still growing at a far faster rate over the past three months.

The report found Instagram’s adoption of over 50-percent “impressive,” because the app is mobile-based without admin-focused features for brand managers. Another interesting tidbit was the effect of Facebook’s ownership. Instagram recently allowed users to automatically add likes on Instagram to their Facebook timeline.

“Brands have taken advantage,” the study says. “Over 90% of Instagram photos posted by brands were also posted to Facebook allowing consumers to engage natively on Instagram and on Facebook. Brands actively cross post to Twitter as well with 60% of brand photos being Tweeted. This cross-channel sharing makes Instagram a powerful content publishing platform as well as a highly engaging social network.”

Other analysis via SimplyMeasured CEO Adam Schoenfeld:

  • Overall usage has climbed in the last quarter as well. 34% of the Interbrand 100 now post at least 1 photo per week, up from 26% one quarter ago. Brands are warming up and starting to make this a key part of their social media marketing mix.
  • With adoption on the rise, brands that arrive late to the party risk falling behind. It’s still early – only 8 of the Interbrand 100 has more than 100,000 followers, but each of those brands has seen a meaningful increase quarter over quarter (~48% on average). In the next quarter we expect to see leaders cross the 1M follower mark. Laggards beware: by the time you get onboard, the gap between you and industry leaders may be daunting.

So the message is clear: Instagram has grown from 15 million users to 100 million in ten months and it’s certainly not going away anytime soon. See the company’s site for the full version, including details on how the top brands are using Instagram, and the types of results they’re seeing.

Like what you're reading? Subscribe to GeekWire's free newsletters to catch every headline

Job Listings on GeekWork

Find more jobs on GeekWork. Employers, post a job here.