20 Key Instagram Stats Every Marketer Should Know in 2019

With 500 million daily active Instagram users who are 70% more likely to purchase a product on a mobile device than non-Instagrammers, brands can’t afford to miss out on Instagram’s marketing opportunities. In this article, we offer statistics surrounding why and how small businesses should use Instagram for marketing, including the results they can expect.

To see results from Instagram, most businesses need to post between 11 and 20 times a month, while also regularly responding to their audiences. This time commitment is overwhelming for some small businesses, which is why many turn to Fiverr. Fiverr allows you to hire someone to manage your social media account for as little as $5 per campaign. Click here to get started with Fiverr.

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1. Who uses Instagram the most?

Instagram enjoys an equally male and female user base. Users are primarily under 35 years of age and earn over $80,000 per year. While most users reside outside the United States, over a third of U.S. adults (over 18) and the majority of U.S. teens use the platform.

Here’s the latest research regarding Instagram user demographics:

35% of adults in the United States use Instagram.
The Instagram user base is estimated to be made up equally of men and women worldwide, with 16% of global men and women using the platform.
88% of Instagram users reside outside the United States, but the U.S. has more Instagram users than any other country at 121 million users, followed by India with 71 million users.
71% of Instagram users are 35 years of age or younger.
72% of teens have an Instagram account.
60% of people with a yearly income of above $80,000 use Instagram, while only 44% of people who earn less than $30,000 use the platform.

(Sources: Hootsuite, HubSpot)

2. What age groups use Instagram?

The largest age group on Instagram are people between 18 and 34 years old. While 32% of Instagram users are between 25 and 34, 31% of them are 18 to 24 years old. The second largest group is between 35 and 44, which makes up 16% of Instagram users. Only 11% of Instagram users are between 45 and 64 years of age, while only 6.4% of them are between 13 and 17.

(Source: Statista)

3. Why do people follow brands on Instagram?

Quick Sprout reports that the majority of people follow a brand on Instagram because they’re interested in their products or services, because they want the promotions found on the brand’s page, for entertainment purposes, to claim an incentive, or because of their general interest in the brand’s industry.

According to Quick Sprout, here is the breakdown of why people follow brands on Instagram:

73.4% follow brands because they’re interested in their products or services.
58.8% follow brands on Instagram because they want to know about their promotions.
51.3% of people follow brands because they find them entertaining.
42.4% of Instagrammers follow brands after having been offered an incentive to do so.
41.5% of brand followers on Instagram follow brands because they’re interested in the industry the brand belongs to.
25.1% of Instagrammers follow a brand so they can easily communicate with its representatives.
21% of people follow brands on Instagram because their friends follow or like the brand’s content.

(Source: Quick Sprout)

4. What percentage of millennials use Instagram?

eMarketer reports that 89% of U.S. millennials have an Instagram account. They expect his number is to grow to 95% by 2020.

(Source: eMarketer)

5. How is Instagram used for marketing?

Over 25 million brands use Instagram for marketing. Instagram posts advertisements from 2 million brands monthly.

(Source: Brand Watch, Sprout Social, Star Gage)

6. On average, how often do brands post on Instagram monthly?

Brands post on Instagram on average between 11 and 20 times per month.

(Source: Star Gage)

7. What businesses use Instagram?

Here are the top seven business industries, based on the percentage of websites with an Instagram connection, using the platform to connect to their customers or boost their brand:

43% of beauty and fitness brands use Instagram.
42% of food and drink brands market via Instagram.
34% of retail brands are on Instagram.
25% of home and garden businesses use Instagram.
23% of sports brands market via Instagram.
22% of news and media brands are using Instagram.

(Source: GrowEpic)

8. What times are best to post on Instagram?

HubSpot’s research shows that the best time to post on Instagram for highest engagement is between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. within your time zone. During the week, Wednesday receives the highest engagement and Sunday receives the least.

Sprout Social, however, found that other times were also prime for engagement. Their data shows that posting at 5 a.m. Central Time boosts engagement as people check their phones while waking up. To catch people who check their phones on their lunch breaks, post between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. Central Time on weekdays. Finally, many people check Instagram feeds around 11 a.m. Central Time on Saturdays as they gather together for weekend plans.

(Sources: HubSpot, Sprout Social)

9. What is the average engagement rate on Instagram?

Instagram users engage with posts by liking, sharing, and commenting on them. Instagram enjoys a 2% to 7% average engagement rate per post, making it the most engaged social media platform for brands to be on. This is impressive compared to the engagement rates on other social platforms like Facebook, with a 0.1% to 1.5% engagement rate, and Twitter, which receives a .01% to .2% engagement rate.

(Source: Web Strategies)

10. What is the average post engagement by industry?

While all industries generally stay close to the average Instagram engagement rates of 2% to 7%, average engagement rates by industry often vary. Here are the average Instagram engagement rates by industries:

Fashion: The fashion industry enjoys an average engagement rate of 0.92% per post.
Food and beverages: This industry receives an average engagement rate of 1.78% per post.
Health and beauty: The health and beauty industry earns an average 0.98% engagement rate per post.
Higher education: You can expect a higher engagement rate from this industry at 3.39% per post.
Home decor: This industry earns on average a 1.18% engagement rate per post.
Hotels and resorts: This industry enjoys an average 2.05% engagement rate per post.
Influencers: You can expect about a 1.87% engagement rate from influencer posts.
Media: The media industry enjoys a 1.07% engagement rate per industry.
Nonprofit: The typical nonprofit business receives a 2.14% engagement rate per post.
Sports teams: Sports teams generally receive around a 2.28% engagement rate per post.

(Source: Kinsta)

11. What types of content do businesses post on Instagram?

Brands post 2 million stories a day on Instagram, and a third of the most viewed Instagram Stories are branded. They also like to share their products and receive great engagement as a result. Of the highest performing Instagram posts, 65% center around products.

(Source: DigitalMarketing.org)

12. Do brands use Instagram hashtags?

Businesses love to share posts surrounding their branded hashtags; 70% of Instagram hashtags are branded.

(Source: DigitalMarketing.org)

13. How many people use Instagram daily?

While Instagram has 1 billion users, only half of them use the platform daily, meaning it enjoys an impressive 500 million daily active users.

14. How does Instagram’s active usership compare to other social platforms?

Instagram has 500 million active daily users, behind Facebook, which has on average 1.56 billion daily active users. The next most-used platform is Twitter, with 100 million active daily users, followed Snapchat with 178 million daily active users, and Pinterest with 70 million daily active users.

(Sources: Dustin Stout, Zephoria)

15. How much time do users spend on Instagram?

On average, Instagram users spend 53 minutes a day perusing the social media platform. Only Facebook users surpass this; they spend on average 58 minutes daily using the Facebook platform.

(Source: Vox)

16. What are the most effective engagement strategies for Instagram?

Marketers increase engagement by the types and structure of content they share and a posting schedule that makes their posts most visible when their target audiences are engaged. HubSpot provides statistics into the most effective engagement strategies brands use:

When brands tag other brands or users in their posts, they receive 56% higher engagement on average.
Posts that include a hashtag enjoy 12.6% higher engagement than those that don’t.
Posts that are tagged with a location garner 79% more engagement than those that don’t.
When brands share videos instead of images, they enjoy a 38% higher engagement rate; videos also receive 19% higher engagement rates than carousel posts.
Images with white space earn 29% more likes than those without white space.
Posts that use blue as the primary color receive 24% more likes than those that employ red as the primary color.

(Sources: HubSpot, Brandwatch, Mention, Sprout Social)

“One of the greatest advances for Instagram was the creation of Business accounts. With this launch, marketers had the ability to gauge their content’s performance beyond likes and comments, and could now utilize analytics to see impressions, engagement, highest performing hashtags, and what content captures the audience’s attention. Instagram Insights also provide data that shows when your audience is online and on what days, allowing you to know the best time to post your content and reach your target audience.”
– Nichole Williamson, Digital Marketing Strategist, Zilker Media

17. How likely are Instagram users to buy a product on Instagram?

People who use Instagram on mobile devices are 70% more likely to buy a product than those who use social platforms available on desktop.

18. How likely are Instagram users to engage a brand on Instagram?

Consumers engage with brands 10 times more on Instagram than they do on Facebook, 54% more than on Pinterest, and 84% more than on Twitter. People are more likely to follow brands on Instagram than on any other social media platform; 80% of Instagram users follow a brand on Instagram and 83% of Instagram users admit to having found new products or services of interest to them on the platform.

(Sources: Oberlo, HubSpot, Hootsuite, Brandwatch)

19. What are the most followed brands on Instagram?

The most followed brands on Instagram include Instagram itself, National Geographic, Victoria’s Secret, Nike, Real Madrid, 9GAG, NASA, the NBA, Chanel, and H&M.

Here is the breakdown of the most followed brands on Instagram:

Instagram: 246 million followers
National Geographic: 90.1 million followers
Victoria’s Secret: 58 million followers
Nike: 29.5 million followers
Real Madrid: 62.1 million followers
9GAG: 46.3 million followers
NASA: 34.7 million followers
NBA: 30.1 million followers
Chanel: 29.3 million followers
H&M: 23.9 million followers

(Sources: HubSpot, Statista)

Bottom Line: Instagram Statistics

Given Instagram’s high engagement and conversion rates, small businesses can greatly benefit from all Instagram has to offer. If they are to do so, however, they must remain just as engaged as their audiences by posting often with proprietary content their audiences will love.

For many small businesses, the time involved in building and maintaining a highly engaged social media following is not realistic to handle in-house. That’s why many turn to Fiverr, where they can hire a social media expert to handle their accounts for as little as $5 per task. Click here to get started with Fiverr.