40% of the Top 10 Selfie Cities are American. Oh.
TIME Magazine has ranked “The Selfiest Cities In The World,” with America taking up four of the top 10 city slots. To determine where people are the most obsessed with taking selfies, TIME looked at nearly half a million pictures on Instagram using the hashtag #selfie.
Then, they ranked 495 cities using geographical coordinates, and it turns out that Makati City and Pasig of the Philippines are the selfiest people on Earth, with 258 selfie-takers per 100,000 people.
Worry not, America came in a close second with Manhattan coming in a close second at 202 selfie-takers per 100,000 people that live in the city.
Those two were extremely far ahead on the list, with third place being awarded to Miami, but it was a distant third with only 155 selfie-takers per 100,000 residents.
Fourth place was awarded to Anaheim and Santa Ana, California with a cool 147 selfie-takers per 100,000 residents. Don’t worry, though, Italians and British are horrible people too, both being named with cities in the top 10 list.
The study is nowhere near scientific, as Instagram is not the only home of selfies, but it truly is the epicenter, and the study is more entertainment than anything.
But guess what, marketers? This is great news
There are many schools of thought pertaining to selfies. Some believe it is an ego-centric generation crying out for attention, others find it to be an artistic expression of humans seeking to connect with other over common experiences.
Regardless of the fuel for the fire, selfies are all the rage, and jokes aside, this is a poorly tapped trend. Marketers, consider ways to incorporate your branding into other peoples’ selfies. At a SXSWi party last year, Icon.me installed mirror stickers with their branding and encouraged people to take selfies with their hashtag. And they did!
Throw in a dash of sweepstakes, competitions, or giveaways, and so long as they’re adherent to the rules of Instagram, Facebook, or the social network you choose to market to, and you’ve got a win. Take advantage of a behavior consumers already have inherently, and incentivize it, and you’ve got a hot branding opportunity, even if you think selfies are as ridiculous as we do.
See where your city ranks in the Top 100 most selfiest takinist cities on Earth.
