And the Future of Social Media Is
Dave Kerpen
Serial Entrepreneur, NY Times Best-Selling Author, Global Keynote Speaker, Investor, Writer for INC.com
This past weekend, to celebrate my daughter Charlotte’s 10 birthday, my wife and I took our daughters and three other 10-year-old girls on a trip to Great Wolf Lodge in the Poconos in Pennsylvania. We had an amazing time, but I’ll leave my review for Trip Advisor. Instead, I’ll focus on what all the 10-year old girls were focused on all weekend: Instagram.
Now, as my wife and I are both social media entrepreneurs, it could be expected that our children would be quick to explore and adopt social media networks and tools. But what about the other girls? It’s a small sample size indeed, but every girl had an Apple device (iPhone, iPad or iTouch) and every girl used Instagram to take and share pictures of pretty much everything we did the entire weekend.
I already knew about Instagram’s success and growth: 100 million users in just 26 months (It took Facebook over 3 years to reach the 100 million user mark). They also boast 45 million photos per day, 8,500 likes per second and 1,000 comments per second. Instagram is clearly the face of the new visual, mobile web. But to see it in action all weekend as four 10-year olds celebrated #charlotteBdayweekend together using Instagram, really brought those statistics to life. Upon questioning the girls, I was further impressed by two things:
The Instagram App Ecosystem
My daughter and her friends use several apps besides Instagram to support their Instagram obsession. They use Instafan to look more closely at their followers and find their biggest fan. They use Versagram to overlay text over photos. They use Instalikes to get more likes and Instarepost to repost others’ photos. Basically, an entire ecosystem is developing around a social network that in itself is just a simple mobile app.
(Side rant: hearing about these apps from my daughter and her friends was the first time I’ve ever felt like an old parent out of touch with technology. I thought because I’m the business, I’d never feel that way. I thought wrong. When you and I were ten, we didn’t have apps, or i-devices, or the internet. We had wooden toys…)
The Mobile Internet
The other striking note from the kids’ behavior over the weekend was their use of mobile devices to use the web. We all know how quickly mobile use of the internet is growing versus desktop and laptop computer use – in fact, mobile use of the internet will take over land use of the internet by next year. But to hear it from a bunch of ten year olds is remarkable. When I asked one of the girls how often she uses a computer to use the internet versus her iTouch, she told me:
“I only use my computer at home to do homework – like typing a report or something. For everything else, I just use my iTouch or my parents’ iPad.”
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So, at least in this corner of the world that is 10-year old girls in Port Washington, New York, USA, Instagram is the only game in town. Even though my daughter, a young entrepreneur herself, is on LinkedIn, they’re too young to be thinking seriously about LinkedIn. And these kids also didn’t want to have anything to do with Facebook or Twitter or Foursquare or even billion-dollar Tumblr. As I said, it’s a tiny sample size, but I thought it was noteworthy enough to share with you.
The good news for Facebook? They own Instagram. Perhaps that pre-revenue billion-dollar acquisition of Mark Zuckerberg’s from a year ago wasn’t so foolish after all. At least if you ask Charlotte’s 4 grade class in Port Washington, the future of social media is Instagram.
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Now it's your turn. Do you use Instagram? How about your children? What social networks do you think will be the most popular ones in the future? Let me know your thoughts in the Comments section below.
Dave Kerpen is the founder and CEO of Likeable Local. He is also the co-founder and Chairman of Likeable Media, and the New York Times-bestselling author of Likeable Social Media and Likeable Business, and the new collection, Likeable Leadership. To read more from Dave on LinkedIn, please click the FOLLOW button above or below.
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Senior Marketing Leader with a proven track record for building high performing teams that deliver on business results.
10yWhile we can certainly celebrate the fact that we are raising the next generation of wired geniuses....what disturbs me the most is the impact this will have on their person to person social skills. I can't tell you how many times my 17, 15, and 12 year old daughters have "difficult conversations" with friends via text or Instagram. Rarely do I hear the phones ring and loud conversations with friends echo through out the house (sorry for stating the obvious -- but the quiet is rather nice). I've also noticed that their willingness to talk to the opposite sex about topics that would otherwise be "uncomfortable" in person has also taken off. Scary. And this Instagram phenomenon where kids seem to define themselves by their number of followers -- how can that be helping their self esteem? This wired world that we get so excited about is raising a generation of kids, who only know how to speak the truth through a box. These are our future leaders....we should all be a bit concerned.
Director of Business Development at Christian & Small LLP
10yIt is fascinating to see the growth and use of collaborative social media sites and I can't wait to see how the next generations will use. One note of caution - at my son's middle school, we have seen a huge spike in cyber bullying through the use of Instagram and Vine...and the ask.fm app. Agree this is the wave of the future but need to teach kids (early) about the responsibility and permanence that comes with use of these apps. Here is great article that explains how tweens (especially girls) are using Instagram to quantify their popularity. http://taylorandsarahbrooks.blogspot.com/2013/04/parents-word-about-instagram.html
Social Media Strategist & Content Marketer
10yI use Instagram so much, I even have six accounts :)
Employee Assistance Programme Administrator of The Judiciary of Trinidad and Tobago
10yvery interesting. Thank you for sharing it with us :)
Senior Software Engineer, Microsoft
10yInteresting post. I do see an issue that has come up in other forums. How do you reconcile your daughters' use of instagram with the instagram terms of service (TOS)? ------- http://instagram.com/legal/terms/ Basic Terms 1. You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. ------- Such use may also expose instagram to prosecution under the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA) (http://www.business.ftc.gov/privacy-and-security/childrens-privacy). Children, social media, and the law? A topic for a future article?