Love her or hate her, but you just cannot ignore Kim Kardashian. The reality TV star has now overtaken Beyoncé as the most-followed person on Instagram, hitting 44,005,604 followers overnight. Kim’s incessant stream of selfies, shots of her derriere, and celebrity chums sharing the jet-set lifestyle with her means that Beyoncé now has to settle for second place with a measly 43,935,640 followers.
Just two weeks ago, Kardashian was behind the Run the World singer with 42.5m followers. Elsewhere on social media, the reality star also wins the race on Twitter where she has 34.7m followers compared to Beyoncé’s 14.1m, although it should be noted the Grammy-winning singer has not tweeted since August 2013.
A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on
Despite being quite similar on paper (incredibly successful women married to rappers, with famous sisters and stylish toddlers) Instagram’s two most popular celebrities have quite different posting strategies. Both women predominantly post photos of themselves and their families — especially their adorable daughters — on Instagram. The main difference: Kardashian West appears to update her account more often, and her photo captions are wordier and more personal. Kardashian rarely goes a day without posting multiple photos: overwhelmingly selfies, but also a mix of paparazzi shots and promos for her branded products. She follows 94 people (all celebrities) and has more than 3000 pictures on her account. But as one savvy Twitter user just pointed out, she might have gotten that final extra push thanks to her husband Kanye West’s sneaker release this weekend.
Beyoncé, on the other hand, follows no one. She has roughly 1000 pictures on her account and does not appear to be a selfie fan. She also rarely captions her pictures, with the exception of the occasional “Flashback Friday”, and is quite comfortable leaving her account idle for a week or two.
Point to note: Even Kardashian is still 50 million followers off Instagram’s most followed account, which is @Instagram itself.
A photo posted by Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) on
And just in case, you want the full list of most popular celebrities on Instagram for any reason whatsoever, here’s the Top 10 with their follower count as of Tuesday (August 25):
- Kim Kardashian — 44,005,604
- Beyoncé — 43,935,648
- Taylor Swift — 43,533,226
- Selena Gomez — 41,843,095
- Ariana Grande — 41,696,873
- Justin Bieber — 36,994,254
- Kendall Jenner — 35,388,483
- Kylie Jenner — 33,703,166
- Nicki Minaj — 32,278,123
- Khloé Kardashian — 30,522,261
Absent from the list, surprisingly, are Katy Perry (26 million) and Rihanna (24 million).
By the way, did you know that we are also on Instagram? We post breaking news, cool gadgets, and the latest scoops there all the time. So now you have one more place to keep in touch with us.
And if you aren’t on Instagram, you can always follow us on Facebook, Twitter, or Google +.