Dive Brief:

• Some 91% of retail brands have a presence on Instagram, and some have seen great success engaging customers through ads and targeted campaigns. Burberry, for example, staged an Art of the Trench campaign, where followers shared photos of themselves in a classic trench coat.

• There is 15 times more engagement via Instagram than on Facebook, and more than Twitter or Google +, according to L2 Think Tank, which does research on social media. And Instagram has gained 150 million users in half the time — three years — as Twitter.

• Instagram has offered sponsored posts and direct messages since late last year, which it says are also working for participating retailers.

Dive Insight:

Facebook and Twitter certainly hog all of the attention these days, but Instagram sees real action from highly engaged people, including many young people, the data shows. Instagram users are busy posting selfies, likes, and hashtags galore. Retailers like Burberry’s, Michael Kors, Coach, and others have had great success with campaigns to get people to log photos of themselves wearing their products. The real question is how this translates to actual sales. The essence of Instagram is in its name: Instant. Interactions on Instagram are generally speedy — and fleeting.