Mumbai: With the aim of acknowledging its most engaging community members across the country, Instagram today announced the Instagrammer of the Year 2019 awards. With a global community of over 1 billion users, Instagram has become the place where people across the world come together to create unique content, engage with the people they love and connect with others on shared interests.
In its second edition, the awards recognize achievements across categories like Most Followed, Engaged Account of the Year, Storyteller of the year, Rising Star of the year, Fashion, Food and Entertainment accounts of the year. The winners represent individuals who have best embraced Instagram’s power of visual storytelling, engaging fans and building a strong community across its various surfaces and features including the feed, Live, stories, IGTV and more.
While announcing the awards, Saket Jha Saurabh, Head, Entertainment Partnerships, Facebook Indiasaid, “It’s heartening to see young people come to Instagram everyday to share memorable experiences and engage with the things they’re passionate about. The Instagrammer of the Year awards are a way for us to recognize creators who epitomize the spirit of our platform, where connections evolve into communities and passions meet products in an inimitable way. They have especially played an important role in helping us maintain authenticity and creating a space for diversity of expression on the platform.”
And the winners are…
- With 39 million followers, a global fan base, and many international projects, Bollywood diva, Priyanka Chopra Jonas (@priyankachopra) emerged as the “Most Followed Account” this year.
- Impromptu Boomerangs at the Cannes Film Festival, slo0mo videos while catching a flight or an AMA with fans, Deepika Padukone (@deepikapadukone) was awarded as the “Storyteller of the Year” for the account with the most engaging stories.
- From providing a sneak peek into the locker room, to his grueling training sessions or an off-field selfie, Indian Cricket Team Captain, Virat Kohli (@virat.kohli)emerged as themost “Engaged Account of the Year”.
- Sara Ali Khan(@saraalikhan95), who’s blockbuster Bollywood debut wowed audiences, also made her Instagram debut in 2018 and wins the “Rising Star Award” for growing her fan base on the community significantly through the year.
- Macaron queen, Chef Pooja Dhingra(@poojadhingra),won the “Food Account of the Year”, recognizing her for her creative and detectable food content.
- Comedian & singer, Bhuvan Bam (@bhuvan.bam22), whose vines have most of the internet laughing out loud, won the “Entertainment Account of the Year” award.
- Fashionista Sejal Kumar (@sejalkumar1195), with her chic photoshoots and street style posts, was awarded with the “Fashion Account of the Year”.
Instagram also recently announced the launch of a civic engagement sticker in Storiesto encourage consumers in India to share their excitement around voting and encourage others to vote too. Globally, Instagram has also recently announced a Quiz sticker to ask your friends and followers multiple choice questions.
The Instagrammer of the Year Awards 2019 list has been collated basis internal data for the period ranging from January – November 2018. While ‘Top Followed’ is a factor of the number of followers of the individual, ‘Top Engaged’ is an assimilation of the total likes and comments (not story views) attained, ‘Storyteller of the year’ is purely basis the story views received, and ‘Rising Star of the year’ is calculated basis the highest follower growth %age recorded amongst the top accounts that debuted on Instagram in India in 2018.
