The agency has partnered with the University of Technology Sydney’s Advanced Analytics Institute and analysed more than three million geotagged Australian Instagram images that were posted in the past 12 months.
The findings from the study reveal that #instagood is the most used Australian hashtag with more than 1.6 million instances of usage, followed by #photooftheday which features in excess of 1.3 million times.
However, brand hashtags are used significantly less. Leading the top 50 brands is #Australia, with more than 855,000 hashtag mentions, followed by #iPhone, #Canon, #Apple and #Facebook. Nike comes in sixth with fewer than 15,000 mentions, and McDonald’s ninth with fewer than 7,000.
Douglas Nicol, creative partner and director at The Works, said this indicates that Australian marketers have not yet embraced Instagram, even though it’s the fastest growing social-media platform in Australia, with more than 1.08 million users in April 2013, according to estimates from socialmedianews.com.au.
The study also found the most popular Instagram posts are posed portraits of people, followed by pictures of food and then 'selfies' (self-shot portraits).
Geographically, selfies lead in Sydney and Brisbane, while food is Instagrammers’ favourite in Melbourne.
"Selfies are more than just the me culture and narcissism, there is a lot of benchmarking happening," said Nicol. "People want to know how they rate in terms of hotness and body image versus complete strangers. It's effectively gamifying your body.”
The findings also show the average active Australian user posts 2.3 times a week. Sydney Instagrammers post the most images, followed by Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and the Gold Coast.
The most popular time of the week for Instagram use is Sunday at 5 pm, while the peak time on weekdays is 8 pm.
Nicol suggested brands keep it pure when engaging with the Instagram community, as the medium is all about sharing beautiful images.
“It’s a creative medium, so brands need to be creative,” he told Campaign Asia-Pacific. A recent exmple of this, he said, was when Nike invited Instagram users to participate in its NikeiD campaign, which allowed them to customise shoes with their favourite Instagram shot.
Nicol also stressed that brands should not be too intrusive when it comes to Instagram, citing pen brand Sharpie, which posted beautiful images with minimal branding.
“Tap into users’ pride, because they want as many people as possible to see, talk about, and follow the post,” Nicol said. “If a brand can facilitate that, people will engage with the brand.”
Here's the complete list of top-10 Instagram brands in Australia:
1. #Australia
2. #iPhone
3. #Canon
4. #Apple
5. #Facebook
6. #Nike
7. #Ford
8. #Nissan
9. #McDonald's
10. #Ikea
