Instagram continues to be a hit with users and marketers – but which brands are really kicking goals on the platform?

A new study sheds some light into which types of businesses are getting the most out of the photo and video sharing platform.

Insta-what?

A new report from Yesmail revealed that less than a quarter of brands are active on Instagram, despite the fact that Instagram is one of the fastest growing platforms.

From January 1 2014 to October 31 2014 Yesmail analysed data fro 2000 brands across five platforms: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube. G+ and Instagram.

Yesmail found that 23% of these had active Instagram accounts. This is far below the other platforms. For example 80% of brands surveyed had Facebook pages and 82% were active on Twitter.  

Shopaholic

Retailers have the biggest presence on Instagram, with 31% of the brands surveyed having an active account. This is closely followed by the hotel sector with 30%.

Drilling down further, Apparel is the most active retail sector (45%), followed by Electronics (37%) and Cosmetics (26%).

Yesmail found brands with active Instagram accounts saw an increase in followers of 278%, more than any other platform. 

Less is more

The study also found that quality trumps quantity on Instagram. Brands that shared 121 posts during Q4 2014 saw an average engagement rate of 1.03%. 

Those that posted 110 during the same period saw an average engagement level of 1.15%. 

The good news for the rest of us? There's still plenty of room left on the Instagram gravy train.