It wasn’t that long ago that Google ruled social media in Brazil with Orkut. Recently, Facebook overtook Orkut in the country, and dominated the landscape there like it does in most places.

Don’t count Google out just yet, however. New data from Experian Marketing Services shows some pretty impressive growth for Google+ in Brazil. According to the firm, Google+ saw a 5,750% increase in market share of visits (to all sites) between July 2011 and July 2012. In the UK, Google+ saw 476% increase.

Instagram and Pinterest are he major stars of the firm’s new report. In North America, Pinterest grew 5,124% and Instagram grew 17,319% between July 2011 and July 2012.

Take a look at this chart showing growth of the two networks in key countries:

Bill Tancer, Head of Global Research at Experian, commented: “The growth of both Instagram and Pinterest over the past year has been phenomenal. The reason for their success is that they haven’t tried to be ‘another Facebook’ to reach consumers. Both networks are image based which people love – we all relate better to pictures than just words.”

“For brands that are retailers for example, a site like Pinterest presents a fantastic opportunity to promote products in a compelling and organized way to a wide group of people across the world,” added Tancer. “Over the next 12 months, we expect to see a proliferation of niche social networks. Offering deeper functionality combined with a lower technical barrier to entry will mean new leaders in social media being created in a matter of days versus weeks and months.”

Here are the other highlights of Experian’s research:

As far as Pinterest is concerned, we can probably expect to see a great deal more growth as the service is now available to users without an invitation, it now has mobile apps, and it is expanding into more languages.