Instagram Video Beats YouTube In Mobile Traffic On Photo Friendly Holiday

Labor Day isn’t the type of holiday that is going to flood web servers with pictures of BBQs and long-weekend vacays, but it does afford this online video reporter an opportunity to look at web traffic of US Holidays gone by.

July 4, 2013 for instance, may very well have been the most videoed holiday in the history of North America. And what’s more is that the vast majority of the video captured on that day was uploaded and viewed on mobile devices not by way of YouTube, but Instagram.

The online photo-sharing turned video-and-photo-sharing website and social network acquired by Facebook for a cool $1 billion in cash and stock witnessed an enormous uptick in mobile internet traffic on America’s Independence Day. According to Flash Networks, the self-described “global provider of intelligent mobile internet solutions,” Instagram’s video viewing exceeded that of YouTube on July 4, as the service captured nearly 28% of all video hits on mobile devices on the holiday.

Here’s that information in chart form:

The findings “were based on mobile Internet traffic data retrieved from over 30 million smartphone users in North America during the first week of July.” Notice, too, that while a ton of people were capturing, uploading, and viewing video in Instagram while watching faux bombs bursting in air, less than your average people were tuning into YouTube.

“It appears that subscribers are moving over to video as the preferred format for capturing holiday memories with family and friends,” said Merav Bahat, Vice President of Marketing and Business Development at Flash Networks in the press release. But that statement’s only partially correct. It appears that individuals are moving to Instagram as the preferred platform for capturing particularly photo-friendly holiday memories with family and friends may be a little more accurate.

Tune back in on January 1, 2014 to see if the Instagram Photogenic Holiday Spike in Traffic trend holds up.