We’ve long been interested in the rise of niche social networks and the impact they are having on the general social media landscape. We’ve taken a look at this from a global perspective in a study launched today and have discovered that Instagram and Pinterest are by far the most popular globally.

The following table highlights their growth between July 2011 and July 2012 in terms of their share of visits to All Sites by country.

The meteoric rise of both Instagram, which allows users to share photos with others through social networks and Pinterest, the online pinboard that allows users  to organise and share their interests with others, has resulted in them now featuring in the top 20 social media networks used in Singapore, the UK and North America.  Their success can be attributed to the fact that they haven’t tried to be ‘another Facebook’.  Instead, they have both identified a gap in the market and used the scale of Facebook to reach consumers.  Both networks are image based too which people love since we all relate better to pictures than just words. Pinterest presents a fantastic opportunity for brands to promote products in a compelling and organised way to a wide group of people across the world.

We have also seen significant gains amongst other niche social networks such as Reddit in Australia, FanPop in the UK and Stock Twits in the US.

Expect to see a proliferation of niche social networks over the next 12 months offering deeper functionality and greater engagement.

Further analysis also highlights some of the other fast growing social networks by country between July 2011 to July 2012: