The inspiration for this section comes courtesy of @SeeThomasHowl. I will go a little more into some of these later, but here are the basics.
Image Sites
With four major stable image sites out there, there has been some serious splitting of demographics. The four I’m talking about are Flickr, Instagram, Pinterest (already covered) and Tumblr (also already covered). Let’s take a look at Flickr and Instagram and at Snapchat as well. You’ll see why I’m setting Snapchat aside as not really being the same as the others. Note there are also pure image hosting sites such as Imageshack and Photobucket. They are both still useful, but neither of them tends to be used for overall social sharing. Instead, users upload their images and have them hosted there, and then place the image links wherever they like, including forums and blogs. These images can and do end up on social media (e. g. Facebook), but Photobucket and Imageshack don’t really have a community feel to them. There is no real “following” like there is on these other sites.
I’m also taking DeviantArt out of this group, as DA tends to be more for serious artists to showcase their work, as opposed to a place to host and edit snapshots.
Flickr
Flickr is a little over half female, with most users fitting within the 25 – 44-year-old age range. See: http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/22/social-media-demographics-stats-2012/ The country most represented was the UK, and an educational level of “some college” was the most popular level.
See: http://www.ignitesocialmedia.com/social-media-stats/2012-social-network-analysis-report/#Flickr What does this tell us? To my mind, this site seems similar to Pinterest in terms of demographics, except for the UK connection.
Another difference with Flickr is the large number of images that are offered under a Creative Commons license. We’ll talk about this later, but check the licensing! You might be able to use that Flickr image elsewhere, albeit (usually) with credit or a link back.
Instagram
18 percent of cell phone users in the 30 – 49 demographic report using it, although the majority of users are teens and young adults. What does this mean to you? It means that whatever you put on Tumblr may very well work here as well. Instagram even acknowledges this, and suggests sharing your Instagram images on Tumblr (and other places, such as Facebook). Instagram also differentiates itself with some filters and other easy to use photographic effects.
Snapchat
Snapchat is, by its very nature, intended to be ephemeral. You can (and do) limit how long your image stays on the site. This has led to an explosion of people sending nude and partly-nude selfies, believing that these images would be rapidly deleted. However, ‘Stories’ last longer. And there have been issues with Snapchat’s content not being deleted quickly, as promised. See: http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2014/05/28/316715640/snapchat-ceos-emails-didnt-disappear-come-back-to-shame-him
Plus, let’s get one thing straight. Regardless of intention or Terms of Service, etc., anything online can be screenshot, or someone can simply take a photograph of their screen with their phone. For anyone who doesn’t want their image to stay online, well, maybe they shouldn’t have put it online in the first place.
Ya think?
The demographics for Snapchat are early adult. If you’re going to make the attempt to market your work on this site, recognize that everything moves fast, fast, fast! You’ll likely need to reupload anything you put out there. You’ll also need to serve this younger demographic, and probably with very arresting images. While YA and NA might seem to be natural fits, I suspect that horror and romance would do better. Horror because of its eye-catching imagery, and romance would be because of the overwhelming young, female demographic. See this article for more information: http://www.marketingcharts.com/wp/online/the-demographics-of-instagram-and-snapchat-users-37745/
The link is to my blog post on demographics for Instagram, Tumblr, and Pinterest. The image is of the home page for Instagram. The YouTube video is a fairly good tutorial on getting started with Snapchat.
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