Business

21 Facts About Instagram That’ll Surprise You

Imagine that you could only use one social media platform for the rest of your life. Which one would you choose?

For many, the answer might be Instagram. Since its founding, it has grown to house an insane amount of users and be a marketing powerhouse for many companies and influencers.

There are many reasons why Instagram remains popular, even with new social media platforms being introduced all the time. This guide will introduce you to some interesting facts about Instagram that will help you to understand why it is still such a popular platform to this day.

The Beginning Stages

#1: Instagram’s Creation

Instagram was created on October 6, 2010. The creator simply wanted a place to share photography, but it ended up becoming one of the most popular social media apps in the entire world.

Its name comes from a combination of “instant camera” and telegram.”

It only took eight weeks for software engineers to develop the app before it officially launched on the app store. Today, it’s consistently one of the top downloaded and searched-for apps.

#2: Instagram Sells to Facebook

Just two years after its founding, Facebook acquired Instagram in 2012. It sold for $1 billion and quickly transformed and gained new features and focus after selling.

Facebook’s owner, Mark Zuckerberg, wanted to buy Instagram because he thought it was a threat to Facebook. In the end, it clearly ended up being a good decision, and for many businesses today, Instagram and Facebook are the perfect pairing for ads and visibility to a variety of users.

Each year, Instagram brings in more than $20 billion in advertising revenue.

Instagram’s Users

#3: One Billion Users

So we’ve established that Instagram is extremely popular, but just how many people use it? On average, over one billion people use Instagram every month!

This number is split pretty evenly between male and female users, and it continues to grow at a steady rate. The continuing growth is impressive because many social media platforms that explode in the way Instagram did see a steady drop-off in new users.

This consistent growth is one feature that attracts businesses and influencers.

#4: Venturing Outside the USA

Did you know that about 75% of Instagram’s users are from outside of the US? This means that Instagram is the perfect platform to reach potential customers that don’t reside in the US.

If your business has products or services that are available to other countries, be sure to create content that appeals to them as well, and pay close attention to Instagram analytics to find the best time for you to post.

If any of your followers are from other countries, you might be surprised when most of them are up and scrolling their feeds. Instagram technology is wonderful and has many different ways for you to dive into your follower’s activities.

#5: 25-34 Years Old

The majority of Instagram users are between 25 and 34 years of age. The second-largest group of users is 18-24-year-olds.

Even though these two groups show that 18-34-year-olds are most commonly found on the app, there are people of a wide variety of ages overall.

This information is useful because it helps you to understand the mindset of the majority of the people you will be trying to market to. If your target audience falls in this age range, making use of Instagram ads is likely going to be a good decision for you.

#6: Disposable Income

Instagram users have higher than average amounts of disposable income. The majority of users make between 30 thousand a year and 75 thousand plus a year.

This information once again shows that using Instagram for marketing is ideal.

With so many users having extra money to spend on whatever they choose, it makes sense that the app sees such success when it comes to selling. Knowing that your audience has money to spend tackles a big amount of the unease that goes into spending money on advertising.

#7: Personal Use

80% of Instagram accounts are used primarily for personal use. This is another one of the benefits of Instagram because only 20% of the accounts on the app are businesses utilizing the app to gain new customers.

Most people are on Instagram simply to see interesting photos in their feed, keep up with friends and family, and shop from both new and familiar brands.

Instagram Stories

#8: Story Popularity

Instagram introduced Instagram Stories in August of 2016. Nobody could’ve guessed at the time exactly how popular these stories would come to be.

There are constantly new features of Instagram Stories being added to encourage their continued use. From adding music and polls to fancy text options and stickers, there are endless ways to customize your stories to fit your personal aesthetic.

Don’t be afraid to play around with the features and see what your followers enjoy seeing and interacting with the most!

#9: Story Ads

Four million businesses use Instagram Stories ads each month. This is a pretty impressive number of accounts that see the value in advertising through Stories.

It’s not hard to see why when you take into consideration the sheer number of people that go through their stories each day. In fact, many people say that they primarily use Instagram for Stories because they’re more personal and customizable than other aspects of the platform.

Considering the potential reach, advertising through stories is simple and cost-effective.

#10: Stories Create Interest

Speaking of advertising on stories, 58% of people surveyed claim that they have become more interested in a particular product after seeing it in Stories.

Have you ever been scrolling through Instagram and found yourself exiting the app to follow a shopping link in order to check out a certain product? You’re not alone!

The more times that people see your ad, the more likely they are to purchase something, so it’s not a bad idea to run the same ad multiple times before switching to a new one, especially if you’re seeing success. Stick with what’s been proven to work.

Posting on Instagram

#11: Posting Once a Day

Business accounts post once a day on average. To make this one post worthwhile, be sure to post it at the right time.

You can take a peek at your Instagram analytics to see the best time for you to post based on your specific followers. Seeing growth on Instagram is as simple as posting once per day, you don’t need to overthink it.

#12: 914 Photos a Second

Another one of the Instagram statistics that surprises many people is the fact that 914 photos are posted every single second.

That’s a lot of photos being posted every second, minute, hour, and day. Each one of those photos is technically considered your competition. Don’t let this number scare you, though.

Focus on posting quality content on a regular schedule and your photos will shine bright among the masses.

#13: Find a Perfect Filter

More than half of the top brands use a consistent filter for each and every one of their Instagram posts.

One of the benefits of Instagram is the ability to curate a profile that looks cohesive so easily. Using the same filter on every photo that you post will not only help with your branding but also with the overall aesthetic of your account.

The way your page looks to people when they first visit it sets the tone for everything else, so consider using a filter to increase your chance of being one of the top brands on Instagram!

Why People Use Instagram

#14: Research

81% of people that use Instagram use it to research different products and services. This is what makes it such a wonderful marketing tool.

If your products and services are visible on Instagram, people will be able to learn new information about your company and use this information to make purchasing decisions.

#15: 5 Hours per Day

Around 9% of Instagrams users are on the app for over five hours a day! It’s a major source of entertainment and relaxation.

50% of users are on the app for between one and three hours a day, which is still an impressive amount. With all of this time spent scrolling through the app, think of how many opportunities you have for your account to be seen!

All it takes is a few seconds out of those hours to capture their attention and convert someone from a stranger to a follower to a customer.

#16: The Explore Page

The explore page is used by more than 50% of Instagram accounts each month.

This page features accounts that post content relevant to the content you regularly engage with and the content that the people you follow post. It also mixes in content that’s trending on the app overall.

This page is a unique opportunity to discover new people to follow and see what’s trending on the app.

Using already trending content as a gauge for what you might post is a useful tip.

Instagram TV (IGTV)

#17: Instagram TV Size

IGTV videos appear 4x larger than photos on the explore page.

This makes them a great way to capture people’s attention! Creating IGTV videos is simple and offers your company a wonderful chance to not only appear on the explore page but appear big and bold.

#18: Instagram TV Captioning

Not everyone takes advantage of sound being available on Instagram videos. Because of this, some of your messages might be lost if a person is only seeing your videos, but not hearing them.

To fix this, make use of the automatic captioning available on the platform. There are 16 different languages that can be captioned automatically as the audio rolls.

#19: Mobile Shoots vs Studio Shoots

Have you considered hiring a professional photographer or videographer to shoot your Instagram ads? According to one of the more interesting Instagram statistics, there’s no need: mobile shot ads outperform studio shot ads 63% of the time.

Instagram users clearly expect stories to appear more effortless and casual than refined and polished. This is likely because mobile shoots appear to be more organic and less like the spammy commercial ads we’re so used to seeing on TV.

Hashtag Usage

#20: Limiting Hashtags Is Best

There are certain things about using Instagram that surprise people, and one of them is how best to use hashtags.

Surprisingly, more hashtags don’t always lead to increased engagement.

In fact, there’s a clear distinction in engagement between posts with fewer hashtags and posts with maxed-out hashtags: the more hashtags, the lower the engagement.

What does this mean for you? Try to focus on using hashtags thoughtfully based on what you’re posting instead of packing in as many as you can.

#21: #Ad

The hashtag with the most engagement is #ad. Being open and honest with your followers about when something is an advertisement is clearly a good strategy.

Nobody likes to be duped into things, and that’s especially the case when using social media.

Endless Facts about Instagram

There are endless facts about Instagram to be shared because it’s a constantly changing and evolving social media platform.

This article highlighted 21 interesting facts on a variety of Instagram’s features. It covered Instagram from when it was first created and the types of users you can expect to see on the platform.

It lays out facts and stats about stories, IGTV, and hashtags.

Make use of these facts when using Instagram and your marketing will be taken to the next level!

If you found this article useful, check out some of the other articles on our site to find more helpful information about a variety of topics.

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