List of most popular social networks in 2021
March 19, 2021
Why does a user stop following a brand in social media?
May 12, 2021
Whether in terms of number of users or in terms of features, Instagram is the social network that has seen the most evolution in recent years. These new developments make it much more than a photo sharing platform, it is now a very useful medium to help brands and businesses deploy their marketing and market directly from the app.
Below, we’ve provided an updated list of 27 Instagram stats* that will help you get the most out of marketing on this network in 2021.
* The statistics in this article come from several sources, including: WeAreSocial, Instagram, statista and emarketer.
Instagram will be 11 years old in 2021..
Instagram was officially launched on October 6, 2010, with one million people having created accounts by December of that year.
Other key dates:
- 2015: 400 million users
- 2016: 600 million users
- 2016: 95 million photos and videos posted daily
- 2017: 800 million of users
- 2017 : The app launches a “LIVE” mode allowing users to shoot and share live videos.
- 2018: 1 billion users
- 2018: Instagram launches IGTV
Instagram is one of the 10 most visited websites.
Although Instagram is primarily a mobile app, its website version enters the top 10 most visited websites.
Users are certainly looking at your posts on a bigger screen than you thought.
“Instagram” is among the top 10 most popular queries on Google.
Facebook, Google, YouTube and Amazon also make the top 10, all ahead of Instagram. Again, this is a great performance for Instagram, which is primarily accessed via an app.
Instagram has the 4th highest number of users of any mobile app.
When it comes to active users of a mobile application, Instagram is only surpassed by Facebook, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Note in passing that the Facebook galaxy occupies the first 4 places in this ranking.
The application recorded 13 million downloads in the second quarter of 2020 alone.
More than a billion people use Instagram every month.
With more than 1 billion monthly users and 500 million daily, Instagram is the second largest social network in terms of active users, behind Facebook.
When considering all social platforms, Instagram is in sixth place, behind Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and WeChat, the Chinese social network.
130 million Instagram users view shopping posts each month.
New shopping and e-commerce features rolling out in 2020 make it easier than ever for brands to sell products directly in the app.
81% of people use Instagram to make it easier to find products and services.
For 2 out of 3 people say this network promotes interactions with brands.
200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile per day.
During their 30 minutes spent on the platform daily, a large portion of Instagram users (subscribe to and) view business profiles.
Instagram users spent an average of 30 minutes per day on the platform in 2020.
That’s an increase of nearly 4 minutes from 2019. If that doesn’t sound like much, consider it a 13.8% jump.
In comparison, Facebook users (37 minutes per day) will spend only 1.4 minutes more per day on the platform in 2020, an increase of 4.3 percent
Addicted users.
Instagram is one of the networks that develops the need for “social validation” in its users.
The fear of missing out on something and the need to post every moment by taking a picture of it and publishing it are among the marked behavioral traits of the network’s fans.
70% of Instagrammers worldwide are under 34 years old.
The platform remains largely dominated by Generation Z (born between 1997 and 2010) and millennials (early 80s – late 90s). That’s according to recent Instagram statistics compiled by Statista.
With 51% women and 49% men the gender distribution on Instagram is fairly balanced.
The network therefore does not have an “average typical user”. For a better content strategy and ad targeting you will need to use social media analytics tools instead to get detailed information about your own audience.
88% of users are outside the United States.
Americans make up the largest audience on Instagram, but with 12% of the total number they are far from the majority.
The five countries that round out the top 5 are:
- – India: 120 million users
- – Brazil: 95 million users
- – Indonesia: 78 million users
- – Russia: 54 million users
In Western Europe, Instagram grew 17.0% in 2020. The region will end 2020 with 132.8 million users, eMarketer predicts. The ranking is as follows:
- 🇬🇧 27 million
- 🇩🇪 25 million
- 🇮🇹 23 million
- 🇫🇷 21 million
- 🇪🇸 19 million
Best engagements of any network.
According to Bannersnack “Carousel” posts get the highest engagement rate with 1.94%, followed by images (1.74%) and videos (1.45%).
According to Instagram, more than 500 million people view “Stories” every day, and one-third of the most viewed stories are by brands. Stories are not subject to the News Feed timeline, they are not limited by Instagram’s algorithm and allow them to appear at the top of followers’ News Feeds. That’s why stories are becoming an essential part of the content strategy of companies and brands.
58% of users say they became more interested in a brand or product after seeing it in Stories.
2021 is the year to start Stories.
50% of users visited a website to make a purchase after seeing a product or service in Stories.
Don’t miss out on all those clicks.
90% of Instagram users follow at least one business.
36% of B2B decision makers use Instagram to research new products or services.
This number puts the network ahead of LinkedIn, but behind Facebook.
If you’re not sure how Instagram could fit into your B2B marketing strategy, contact us and we’ll perform a full diagnostic of your marketing and sales potential on this network.
The average engagement rate for an Instagram post from a business account is 0.96%.
Engagement is:
- 1.03% for photo posts (i.e. 1 engagement per 100 followers);
- 0.86% for carousels;
- 0.75 for videos.
These numbers are of course highly variable depending on the industry.
50% are more interested in a brand after seeing an ad about it on Instagram.
Properly targeted and visually appealing, Instagram ads are a very effective way to connect with new customers.
In 63% of cases Stories ads shot on mobile perform better than those shot in the studio.
More casual and less polished, Stories ads shot on mobile feel more like natural content than cleverly marketed content. This is the same reason why how-to tutorials, behind-the-scenes posts, interviews and features are the most popular content.
Stories with embedded text perform better than ads without 75% of the time.
Think about the impact these overlays can have when it comes to offering to add a product to the cart.
Stories that offer a CTA perform better 89% of the time.
89%! No comment.
IGTV videos are 4 times bigger than photos on the Explore page.
As long as you go to the Explore page.
According to Instagram, 87% of users say an influencer motivated them to make a purchase.
For those who buy from influencers, image posts and Stories (73%) are the content that influenced them the most, according to MediaKix.
Some stars charge top dollar for featuring products in their posts.
Actor Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who charges the most: $1 million (187 million followers).
The starlet Kylie Jenner (182 million followers), can demand $ 990 000 per sponsored publication.
Instagram isn’t just a B2C network.
46% of B2B content marketers have used Instagram to conduct business-related research in the past 12 months.
While this is still lower than with LinkedIn (95%) or Twitter (86%), it’s worth noting that business influencers and tech or marketing specialists are increasingly making their mark on the platform.
