K-pop and e-sports-related content enjoys great popularity on Instagram

The CEO of Instagram, a social network service that has more than one billion users worldwide, cited Korea’s cultural content such as K-pop and e-sports as the most representative content on Instagram. He also said he is planning to strengthen e-commerce features on Instagram this year.

During a press conference held at Facebook Korea in Seoul on Monday, Instagram CEO Adam Mosseri said he hopes Instagram to serve as a platform that can promote Korea to the world and that e-sports and K-pop are the most representative Korean content that are drawing users’ attention. Mosseri chose Korea as the first country to visit after he was named the new head of Instagram in October last year. He arrived in Korea over the weekend and went to see the online game, “League of Legends” competition and a music show at a broadcasting station.

Mosseri said K-pop has been one of the most popular genres on Instagram for four years since 2015 and the popularity of e-sports has soared in recent years. Over one million users in Korea have either posted, written comments about, or liked e-sports-related content in the past three months.

Mosseri also announced his vision to strengthen e-commerce features on Instagram this year. He said he is thinking ways to provide users with convenient shopping tools by connecting distributors, sellers, and creators on Instagram. The photo and video-sharing social network site is partnering with Samsung Electronics to add “Instagram Camera Mode” to the camera app on the newly announced Galaxy S10 in order to expand its user base.


Dong-Jin Shin shine@donga.com