75 Instagram Marketing Stats to Boost Reach and Conversions in 2022

October 6th 2022, Instagram will turn 12. 

In these last few years, Instagram has become one of the most popular social media platforms in the digital world. Research shows that it is the 4th most active social media platform and 18.3% of all the people on Earth use Instagram today.

What started off as a photo-sharing application, has now become a powerful marketing tool for over 200 million businesses!

And why wouldn’t it be? 

Internet users are quite fond of this social platform and visit it regularly. 

Semrush’s research shows that, based on total website traffic, Instagram is one of the world’s top 10 most-visited websites globally, with 2.9 billion total visits per month. 

This popular social platform is also the 9th most-Googled search term!

And, Instagram is the second most-downloaded app in the world! 

Just behind TikTok, everyone’s favorite video app.

So there’s a reason why businesses are increasingly flocking towards Instagram – it’s where their audience is. 

So who exactly are Instagram users and how can this platform benefit businesses? Let’s find out. 

User demographics

1. India has the most Instagram users – 253.5 million  active users
2. The United States of America has at least 155.7 million active Instagram users
3. Instagram has at least 1.452 billion users around the world in April 2022
4. 23.4% of all people aged 13 and above around the world use Instagram today.
5. 87% of users are outside the U.S. 

Now let’s discuss the genders. Which gender uses Instagram more?

Interestingly, both genders are equally invested in Instagram and all that it has to offer. 

Research shows, 

1. 48.1% of Instagram’s global users are female
2. 51.9% of Instagram’s global users are male

What about age groups? 

Millennials, Gen z, or Boomers? Who makes up the largest slice of this pie?

1. Users aged 25 to 34 account for the largest share of Instagram’s advertising audience – Instagram has 462.8 million users aged 25 to 34 (31.6% of Instagram’s total ad audience). If you’re targeting Gen Z, Instagram is where you need to be. 
2. Then come users aged 18 to 24 at 433.6 million  (30.1% of Instagram’s total ad audience).
3. And on third place we have  users aged 35 to 44 at 232.3 million (15.8% of Instagram’s total ad audience).
4. 25% of U.S. teenagers say Instagram is their preferred social media platform.

User usage

1. 59% of U.S. adults use Instagram daily.
2. 42% users say they straight-up distrust it as an information source.
3. Instagram users use the app around 30 minutes per day.
4. 50% of Instagram users use it to discover new brands, products or services.
5. 2 in 3 people say Instagram helps them engage better with brands.
6. 57% of people like seeing polls and quizzes from brands on Instagram. Instagram Stories has several excellent interactive features businesses can use to entertain and engage with their audience including polls, Question and Answer stickers, sliders, and so on. 

Instagram for business

1. 90% of Instagram users follow at least one business.
2. 35% Instause the app for customer service and see high ROI.
3. 30% work with influencers (or creators) and 42% plan to start this year.
4. There are 500,000 active influencers on Instagram.
5. 84% say Instagram marketing was effective for their company last year.

1. An average Instagram business account grows its followers by 1.69% each month. 
2. An average Instagram business accounts posts 1.6 posts a day. 
3. 28% of Instagram marketers say improving customer service and retention is one of their top goals in 2022.
4. Photo posts make up 62% of all main feed posts.
5. 995 photos are uploaded on Instagram every second. 
6. On Instagram, photos showing faces get 38% more likes than photos not showing faces.
7. On Instagram, images with a high amount of negative space generate 29% more likes than those with minimal negative space.
8. Video posts make up 16.3% of all main feed posts.
9. The Instagram explore page is viewed by 200 million accounts daily.
10. Posts with a location Get 79% more engagement.

What is the average engagement rate for posts on Instagram? 

While it varies greatly depending on your content, your industry/niche, your audience, what time you post it on, and so on, a general study showed, 

1. The average engagement on Instagram business account posts is 0.83%

Sprout Social found that, 

1. The best times for businesses to post on Instagram are Tuesday 11 a.m.–2 p.m. and Monday through Friday 11 a.m. 
2. The worst day to post is Sunday.

Let’s discuss influencer marketing now. 

1. 93% of marketers plan to use Instagram for influencer marketing.
2. Influencer marketing takes up more than half of the marketing budget for 17% of marketers.
3. 55.4% of Influencers use Instagram Stories for sponsored campaigns.
4. Business accounts with fewer than 10,000 followers have an average engagement rate of 1.11%.

How can businesses start using Instagram for marketing?

Here’s how.

Step 1 – Create a comprehensive profile

From your business details (including website and preferably Google Maps location if you run a brick and mortar shop, as well) to your profile picture, everything on your profile should be thorough and in line with your brand identity. 

Make sure the details are similar to your other social profiles. 

Step 2 – Build a cohesive feed

Your feed is the first thing users see when they land on your profile.

The more cohesive and pleasing to the eye it is, the higher the conversions. There are several themes you can choose from when creating your feed.  

Warby Parker’s feed is a great example. They make sure to sprinkle their brand color (warby blue) throughout their feed to weave all the posts together. 

Step 3 – Focus on creating video content

With the advent of Reels and other video features on Instagram, marketers and creators are seeing great results with video content. 

Businesses can create content around,

• Tips and tricks in their niche
• Interviews with brand owners, influencers, industry experts
• Short DIY videos akin to Buzzfeed’s Tasty videos
• GIFs
• Memes 
• Behind the scenes

Use Stories (especially its interactive features like stickers, polls, sliders, etc) to engage with your audience. Use Reels and IG videos to educate and entertain your audience. 

You can also leverage user-generated content. Create a brand hashtag, a USG campaign, and ask users to post content with your brand hashtag. After seeking permission, you can use that content on your feed.

Instagram hashtags

1. Generic Instagram hashtags like #love (678,611 occurrences) and #photography (635,149 occurrences) are still the most widely-used.
2. The amount of hashtags you use on your post does not affect your post performance so you can experiment.

Instagram video

1. Instagram Live has the highest ROI of any content format.
2. 9 out of 10 users watch Instagram videos weekly.
3. 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories daily.
4. 58% of users say they’re more interested in a brand after seeing it in a Story.
5. 50% of Instagram users say they visited a website to make a purchase of a product or service after seeing it in Stories.
6. Brand Stories have an 86% completion rate.
7. The most active brands post around 17 Stories per month. That’s one story every other day. 
8. 60% of Instagram videos on Stories are watched with the sound on.
9.  Instagram has seen an 80% increase in users spending time watching video on the platform since June 2017.
10.  Video posts on Instagram receive twice as much engagement as compared to other types of posts.
11. Using stickers on Instagram Stories can increase viewership by 83%.
12. One-third of the most-watched Instagram Stories came from business profiles.
13. 7 out of 10 users said that they swiped up to access links on Instagram Stories by brands.
14. 91% of active users watch videos on IG weekly .
15.  Sprout Social Index™ 2022 showed that 66% of consumers found short-form video to be the most engaging type of in-feed social content, up from 50% in 2020. 
16.  68% of video marketers plan to include Instagram video in their 2022 video marketing strategy. That’s 10% more than previous year!

Instagram Reels

Reels, created to compete with TikTok, were introduced in 2020. 

1. Reels can run upto 90 seconds.
2. Reels ads can run up to 60 seconds.
3. The most viewed Instagram Reel has 289 million views by Khaby Lame.
4. After Reels’ release, Instagram’s usage in Brazil grew by 4.3%.
5. Reels have become Instagram’s fastest-growing feature worldwide.

1. Nike averages 4.6 million views per Reel.
2. Meta reports that 53.9% of Instagram Reels ad audience share is male, with 46.1% females.
3. Instagram Reels ads reach 10.9% of the total population (aged 13+).

Case Study

Plant, a gardening mobile app, decided to create Reels to promote their app. Their main goal was to increase app installs, boost reach, and encourage users to subscribe for the free trial.

The result?

• 3X lower cost per trial subscription with Reels ads

• 26% lower cost per 1,000 views with Reels ads

• 31% lower cost per app install with Reels ads

Instagram Ads

1. Instagram’s advertising audience reach grew by 12.8% over the past 12 months. Which essentially means marketers can now reach 165 million more users on Instagram than they could this time last year.
2. Stories ads are predicted to bring in almost $16 billion in global net ad revenues.
3. 96% of US marketers surveyed plan to continue using Stories ads in the next 6 months.
4. Instagram’s advertising reach has outpaced Facebook this past year – it grew by 20.5% while Facebook’s advertising reach grew by a mere 6.5%
5. The average Instagram cost per click (CPC) is $1.23 in the US.

Case Study

rom&nd, a south korean cosmetics brand, experimented with dynamic ads to promote their products to their target audience. They added product tags to their dynamic ad posts and encouraged viewers to click on the product tags, which would take them to their Instagram shop. 

The result?

• 1.6X increase in purchases from dynamic ads with product tags compared to dynamic ads without

• 2.5X return on ad spend from dynamic ads with product tags

How can businesses advertise on Instagram?

With Instagram’s dwindling organic reach, businesses need to use paid advertisements on this platform to reach their target audience and convert them. 

There are several different types of ads you can run on Instagram.

• Photo ads: In this, businesses use a single image to promote their services or products. The image can have text overlays and other illustrations to make it pop. 
• Video ads: As the name suggests, businesses can promote their brand on Instagram by using a video. Videos work better than photos because they can cover a lot more content. There are several different types of video ads that businesses can invest in including Reels ads and IGTV ads.
• Carousel ads: Carousel ads consist of multiple images that users can swipe through. These work excellent for products-based businesses, where marketers might need to promote multiple products or show their product range to their target audience. 
• Ads in Explore: With more than 50% of Instagram users accessing Explore every month, businesses can choose this ad type to ensure their content is displayed between trending content. 
• Stories ads: Instagram Stories ads are full-size images or videos that appear between Stories. The best part about Stories ads is that you can add interactive elements to your Stories for higher engagement and conversions. 
• Shopping ads: The newest feature to hit Instagram, Instagram shopping ads make it super easy for businesses to target their audience and encourage them to convert without leaving the app. Interested viewers can view the product, get all the details, and checkout directly.
• Collection ads: A hybrid of carousel and shopping ads, collection ads allow users to buy directly through the ad.

When selecting the best ad type for your brand on Instagram, consider the following things.

Your goal

Are you looking to boost conversions or awareness? 

Do you want to increase your Instagram followers or drive more traffic to your website?

What kind of results are you thinking of achieving with your paid advertisements?

Your audience

In several countries, Reels are still not available. Similarly, there are some features that are available in some places, and unavailable in others. So before choosing the ad type, be crystal clear on your audience. 

Who are they? 

Where do they reside? 

What kind of content do they enjoy consuming? 

Your organic content

And lastly, what kind of content sees the best results on your feed? Do users engage most with your interactive Stories? Do they comment and share your Reels videos? 

Go through your organic content results and choose ads accordingly to them.

Instagram Shopping

1. 44% of people use Instagram to shop weekly
2. 72% of users report making purchase decisions based on something they saw on Instagram;
3. Adding a product tag on at least five posts a month increases product page visits and purchases. Start by creating an Instagram Shop and add product tags to your posts to boost conversions. 
4. 79% have leveraged Instagram Shopping tools and one in three plan to use them for the first time in 2022.  
5. In 2022, 55% of Instagram marketers plan to try Instagram Shops and 48% plan to use Instagram Live Shopping for the first time.

With more than 130 million users tapping on Instagram Shopping posts each month, businesses serious about boosting conversions need to create perfectly cataloged Instagram shops. 

What are Instagram shops?

It’s an mCommerce strategy businesses use, where Instagram users can view products, read details about them, and purchase them all without leaving the app. 

A digital storefront of a brand. 

Some common features of an Instagram shop include,

Product detail pages – These are pages where you list down all the key details of your products, including adding professional pictures of your products. When you tag products in your Instagram posts, Instagram will pull this information to present to viewers. 

Collections – Like the name suggests, you can group together similar products in collections. This makes it easier for users to browse through your product line and look for products that they need. 

Checkout – Still rolling out globally, checkout lets users purchase your products without leaving the app.

Once you’ve created your Instagram Shop, you can start tagging products in your Stories and feed posts. Instagram allows upto 5 product tags per post. If you’re using user-generated content, you can tag both the user and the product shown in the picture, as well. 

Similarly, you can leverage Instagram Live and tag your products during Live sessions. Engage in real time with your audience, show them your products, and allow them to easily purchase the products without having to leave the app. 

Instagram Shopping ads are also available to businesses with IG shops, which helps boost conversions. 

Conclusion

Instagram is here to stay.

If you still haven’t jumped on this bandwagon, now’s the time.

About JEMSU

JEMSU is a Boise SEO & Los Angeles SEO agency.  We provide comprehensive search strategies for small and large businesses.