Media Update’s Cassy van Eeden chatted to him about the rise of Instagram, MXit's plumitting numbers and South Africa's lack of interested in LinkedIn.

The SA Social Media Landscape 2015 report indicates that the number of South African Instagram users has increased by 133% since 2014. What would you say are the reasons for the increase, and such a dramatic one at that?

The key reasons for the rise of Instagram are not very different from the factors that it made the fastest growing social network of 2014 as well. Then, the 65% growth rate put it ahead of all the other networks. For that rate to double, to 133% in the past year, confirms our view that visual communication was taking off.

With visual networks like Instagram and YouTube experiencing fastest growth, although not the biggest numbers, tells us about a voracious appetite out there for visual content.

Seeing that Instagram is a visual platform, it seems strange that Pinterest – also a visual platform – has decreased in users by 17%. What are your thoughts on this disparity?

The core difference between the two is that Pinterest consists of 'found' images that are collected elsewhere and shared on Pinterest, while Instagram comprises original content that is created by the owner and then shared online. There is no question the latter makes for a far more powerful value proposition.

Following your address at the Social SA event, a common reaction on social media seemed to be that a lot of people were surprised that there are so many South African users on LinkedIn. Would you say LinkedIn is underrated in South Africa? How do you predict the platform will perform in the next year in SA?

LinkedIn is completely underrated by the media as well as by agencies, as it is not perceived as cool or hip. Yet, it comprises the most desirable of all target markets in social media.

Growth will probably slow as it begins to saturate the professional market, but we will then see a maturing of its use as more and better content is created for LinkedIn and shared on the platform. Strategic use will also be fine tuned or refined and we will see interesting corporate as well as SME approaches and models of use.

Despite slow Internet speeds and the high cost of data, YouTube remains the second largest social network in South Africa. What is it about the platform that makes South Africans so willing to spend data and even test their patience?

Once again, YouTube comprises visual content, in an easily digestible format and often with high entertainment value. One of the most useful aspects of YouTube is that the resolution of a video can be adjusted to the quality of the signal, so you can still get a lot out of it with relatively poor bandwidth.

While compiling the report, was there anything that really took you by surprise, something that you could not have predicted?

We were surprised by the 'celebrity' takeover of Instagram on the one hand, and by the limited extent to which brands were able to get to grips with Instagram on the other. The massive rise in engagement of Facebook users was also unexpected, as was the drop in Twitter engagement. The fall in MXit was expected, but not the scale of it.

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