Writing about history in many cases means we love data, as we often have to deal with the lack of data that exists when one goes deep into watchmaking history. As such, we decided to compile a database of 1,000 Instagram posts from 50 accounts that we identified (taking their most recent 20 posts of watches, and only watches – not watch spotting posts or memes) and give an indication of the most popular watches on Instagram. Of course, this is not at all on the level of an academic statistical analysis which is also why we will not be adding any commentary to our findings as the statistical insignificance of a sample size of 1,000 Instagram posts would mean that anything we say is likely to be inaccurate. Nonetheless, we’d like to consider this as a first step to starting to gather even more data not only on the watch industry but also on the history of watches, and an indication of the brands that the watch community on Instagram find the most desirable. We put great effort into researching and identifying these accounts, doing our best to ensure that the sample of 50 Instagram accounts is unbiased. We looked at the top accounts down to a threshold of 10,000 followers. Looking at accounts with a focus on vintage, modern, high-end, and affordable timepieces. We also tried to look at various geographies (North America, Europe, Asia) and included paid/sponsored post by social media influencers.
Rolex Datejust
We hope this can serve as some interesting information for those involved in the industry and perhaps even as an indication for people working in watch media or those working on their own Instagram accounts (not that you should ever think copying other people will get you anywhere, especially in matters pertaining to horology). But again, we’d like to reiterate that, if anything, this should serve as an indication and not as empirical evidence given the statistical significance of our analysis.
To view the Excel spreadsheet that we used to gather this data please click here. There you can see which accounts we chose and what their latest 20 posts were (the data was gathered between April 22nd and October 10th, although most of it was gather in and around those two dates).
By: Eric Mulder and Andres Ibarguen