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Instagram may be great for some brands, but not a fit for others, as its audience is largely young and female. Over 90 percent of the 150 million people on Instagram are under the age of 35. And of Instagram's 150 million monthly active users, more than 60 percent live outside of the United States. Omnicom and Instagram must also be careful not to oversaturate the audience with ads or the audience will flee. On a site that is largely based on photo sharing, with no firm editorial context, it will be a challenge to ensure the ads fit into the context of the user’s feed and be relevant. Even if it is beautiful and not disruptive, if it is not providing value, it will not be effective.

That’s four percentage points up from last year’s 67%

when it comes to frequency of use, the rankings change. Facebook continues to remain at the top in the daily rankings, with 63% of people accessing it on a daily basis. Instagram — last in the general rankings — is not far off and in second place, with a 57% daily use. Similarly, its weekly and “less often” rates are also close, respectively at 22%/20% and 14%/22%. (

Twitter may overall be seeing less usage in general than Pinterest but those who are on it appear more engaged: some 46% of Twitter users are on it daily for their quick fix of quips made and received. Pinterest, in contrast, has a fairly low rate of daily usage, with 23% of its users visiting on a daily basis. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter also are generating a significant amount of mulitple-times-per-day use, with 40% at Facebook, 35% at Instagram and 29% at Twitter, Pew says. LinkedIn, meanwhile, has a lot of work to do, with only 13% of its users going there daily.

Pew notes that for now it looks like Facebook is partly winning because of how it has managed to appeal to a wide range of users — a pretty impressive turn for widening its reach, considering that it started out as a network restricted only to university networks. The demographic data for other networks stands in contrast to this: Pinterest “holds particular appeal to female users”, with women four times more likely as men to be Pinterest users; LinkedIn is “especially” popular among college graduates and internet users in higher income households. Twitter and Instagram resonate with urbanites and younger adults, and non-whites. (Facebook has over 70% usage among whites, Hispanics and black users, Pew notes.) All of them, excepting LinkedIn, has its highest proportion of users in the 18-29 age bracket; LinkedIn is more popular with the 30-49 group. Among those who say they use only one social networking site, Facebook is a clear winner with 84% selecting it as their sole site, with the others lagging behind by a very far stretch: 8% solely use LinkedIn, 4% solely use Pinterest, and Instagram and Twitter each picked up only 2%

Finally, a habit is formed. Users no longer require an external stimulus to use Instagram because the internal trigger happens on its own. As Yin said, “I just use it whenever I see something cool.” Having viewed the “popular” tab of the app thousands of times, she’s honed her understanding of what “cool” is. She’s also received feedback from friends who reward her with comments and likes. Now she finds herself constantly on the hunt for images that fit the Instagram style. Like a never-ending scavenger hunt, she feels compelled to capture these moments.

Facebook's ad service has recently suffered accusations that it is afflicted by bots, and it's also been suggested that Facebook's user base growth has significantly slowed down.

How about Twitter? It’s surprising to see the popular social media platform didn't make the top five.

59% of the respondents said they used Twitter, helping it score well in the area of intensity, which measures Brand Dependence amongst people who currently use a product or service. But Twitter didn’t fare as well in the prominence ratings, which take stock of how effortlessly and easily thoughts and feelings about a brand come to mind. Twitter also scored lower on more conventional brand measures such as likability, according to Vincent, and qualitative data revealed that people had a hard time relating to the brand because they didn’t fully understand how to use Twitter.

YouTube performed extremely well in the survey, with strong Brand Dependence scores in the areas of brand-self connection and prominence. Competitor Vimeo didn’t do so hot--in fact, only 16% of those surveyed had used the video-sharing destination.

Breaking it down by age without respect to gender, Instagram was the top social media outlet for those under 25, with Facebook coming in second and Pinterest third; Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest were the top three destinations for people 24-44; and those over 45 liked Facebook best, followed by Instagram and Foursquare.

Looking to the future, the social media brands that show the most potential in the eyes of survey respondents overall are Reddit, Tumblr, Snapchat and Vine. Vincent reports they all scored highly on various Brand Dependence measures, and he says their shared challenge going forward will be getting more people to sample what they have to offer.

Despite Justin Timberlake's star power on Myspace, only 7% of surveyed teens use the network, according to the Pew report. And all 7% said they used other social media accounts more frequently than MySpace

Pew found that daily usage has not changed on social platforms in any significant way. "The frequency of teen social media usage may have reached a plateau," the report said.

Overall, the main theme here is diversity. Users are accessing more social networks across more platforms than ever before, leading to a wider variety of social interactions happening daily. Perhaps the most telling piece of GWI’s data is that users, by and large, like to be social multitaskers — we are transitioning from commitment to just one platform to a diet of many different kinds of social media depending on our mood.

The story with marketing and young people is the story with marketing and adults. When people are looking for information, they're much more open to advertising than when they're trying to hang out with their friends and you're getting in their way. Branding and being recognized as a brand is a lot about being an authentic participant in those spaces. Young people are totally aware of when a company is making a YouTube video just to sell to them. They're not dumb, they totally get this. The thing is, it's funny when they're on YouTube and seeking it out, it's not funny when it's getting in the way of talking with their friends.

What's interesting is that as a lot of young people are running away from their parents into a variety of apps, they're also running away from marketers. That will be an interesting battleground in the next couple of years, because that creates monetization issues for the app creators.

The difference is Applicant A has a large social following of Twitter followers and Facebook friends which they’ve used proactively to connect with future professors, industry leaders, and executives at companies. They’ve already built a network of people who they are sharing valuable content with, allowing their strengths to shine. You are able to get a genuine understanding of the applicant by seeing how Applicant A engages with their followers and posts about the issues he/she is passionate about.

Imagine a college admissions recruiter evaluating two applicants side by side. They both look the same on paper. They shine academically, with impressive transcripts, essays, and SAT scores. Both have an extensive list of extracurricular activities and outstanding recommendation letters.

Applicant B may have a social media presence (what college-age kid doesn’t?), but never took the time to fully develop it and turn it into an asset by having a “neutral” (read: a non-keg-stand) avatar photo, removing inappropriate language, and posting information that spotlights passions and strengths. As the college admissions recruiter, you can only choose one. Who would you choose? In this case, Applicant A’s wise use of social media gives him/her an edge over an otherwise perfect Applicant B.

Students with a robust social media presence and clearly defined personal brand stand to become only more influential.

The scenario remains the same for job applicants. When choosing between two similar applicants, hiring managers are increasingly turning to social media outlets to supplement information they are unable to glean from applications or interviews. Many companies use social channels as screening tools.

77% of employers use social media to recruit candidates

Share stories visually with photos and videos to grab users’ attention: Posts with photos receive 50 percent more likes.

Page targeting enables page admins to publish stories into the News Feeds of audiences who are going to be most interested in the content, without inundating those who may not.

Use engaging thumbnails for link stories: Links with thumbnails received 65 percent more likes and 50 percent more comments.

Vary your post type — users don’t engage the same way with every post: Mix it up between status updates, links, polls, and photos.

Optimize your page for Graph Search and mobile: Ensure that your page description is complete and up-to-date, which will help its performance in Graph Search results, and pin posts to ensure that users see the most important stories on both desktop and mobile.

Facebook's stock fell during after-hours trading after news of the teen data broke.