Top Instagram Statistics You Should Understand For 2022

Top Instagram Statistics You Should Understand For 2022

Instagram’s Head, Adam Mosseri said last year that Instagram was no longer just a “square photo sharing app”. Like other social media platforms, there has been a shift of focus towards video and shopping, to catch up with the popularity of social video sharing and to cash in on the exponential growth in shopping from the easy chair.

Evolving technological capabilities across social generally, together with the easily digestible content on Instagram makes this platform a potentially powerful ‘rod in the pond’ when planning your social marketing strategy, particularly as a retailer.  If you still need convincing of Instagram’s revenue potential, then, we’ve brought together some of the figures that mean that this social media platform’s offering stack up for investment during 2022.

First off, don’t assume that because this increasingly popular digital hang out hasn’t been running for as long as others, it doesn’t wield incredible power, especially with younger audiences and its profile continues to evolve as functional enhancements improve.

 

Buyers Be Loving It

While shopping on Insta is still fairly recent, you may be amazed to hear that every month alone, there are over 130 million users tapping an Instagram Shopping post.  Some marketing commentators are predicting that in just three years from now, we could be witnessing social shopping becoming an $80 billion industry in the U.S. alone.  Instagram’s own Trend Report for 2022 claims that nearly 1 in 4 of its Gen Z users expect to shop via their social media feeds… and why not? So if you want to meet your consumers where they are relaxed and ready to buy, then you need to work on your social shopping strategy.

Creative Collaboration Is the New Rainbow

The pandemic didn’t just bring rainbows to our windows, the creators have come out in force on social, maximising lock down to show what they can do and their creativity has been a huge cultural force.  Four fifths of Gen Z Instagram users (toddlers at the turn of the millennium) assert that creators are more influential on culture than traditional celebrities.  

As of 2021, says Hootsuite, 50 million young artisans were maximising their social savvy to sell to receptive, hipster audiences.  In the U.S., apparently influencer marketing will be a huge trend in 2022, with 72.5% of marketers expected to adopt this as a strategy.

Social has always been about community and Instagram’s ‘Collabs’ and ‘Branded Content’ ads make collaboration easier than ever for brands looking to reach out to audience and innovate.  Creative Instagrammers now have the tools to list brands they’re interested in working with. By the same token, brands can easily find and filter for best-fit creators for specific advertising campaigns.  This is a whole new way of marketing, blurring the lines between freelancers, free-thinkers, garage businesses and bigger players to the benefit of everyone who is looking for novel products and services.

Partnering with influencers is easy to work out. Check out Instagram’s dedicated DM section, specifically for messaging potential partners to work on collaborations.  

Affiliate marketing has been around for a long time, but now creative types can monetise their online profiles more easily by connecting with retailers’ Instagram Shops.  Setting up shops in partnership with brands is also to likely see growth this year as younger would-be internet entrepreneurs look away from the 9-5 career, to determining their own futures on their terms.

 

7th Wonder of the Digital World

Semrush have declared that Instagram is in the top ten most visited websites globally.   Every month it sees 2.9 billion in traffic. Think about that for a moment…  Then imagine too, that most of those visits come via the Instagram mobile app.  If you are optimising for desktops and laptops, it’s time to refresh your content for compatibility of the Gen Zer on the move.  Don’t think that because Instagram is only the 9th most Googled term either; why would Instagrammers bother, when they can just tap open their app?

Instagram just misses out on a podium place at the social Olympics, but they are there, shaking up the market leaders.  It’s currently sitting in 4th position, which isn’t bad for a twelve year old! While Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp lap this youngster for active, global daily users, 1.3 million warrants a lap of honour.  It still beats other contenders, such as TikTok, Twitter, Snapchat and Pinterest.  Chances are your average Instagrammer will be hanging out on other social platforms anyway, as apparently only 0.1% were only found here in 2021, say Hootsuite.  83% of users are Facebookers too; 55% also use Twitter.  This digital social mixing means that dishing up the same content across platforms might risk familiarity breeding frustration, but it’s also a good reason to split test campaigns between channels, helping you finding differentials across what might otherwise seem like similar audiences. 

As It Appens

As for App appeal, Instagram definitely has it, as the second most downloaded app globally. TikTok pipped them to leader position in 2021. Nevertheless, 1.22 billion people using Instagram every month is pretty staggering, regardless of this only amounting to half the numbers of Facebook and YouTube; they have been around longer and Insta is catching up and has the edge in terms of combining some of the stronger aspects of both.  Multi-functionality through social networks definitely seems to be a trend across the various platforms and Instagram feels less clunky compared to YouTube for flexibility of use and has less of a bad rep than Facebook for reliability perhaps with younger audiences.   

Speaking of which, did we mention Instagram was the domain of choice younger audiences, with 18-34’s making up the largest age grouping at 60% of this audience;  16 to 24’s prefer Instagram to TikTok and other social platforms.  Despite being below the acceptable user age, 5% of users are aged under 11 years old.  Gender of users is categorised by Meta, as binary (male or female) and is split almost evenly, according to Facebook reporting 50.8% identifying as female and 49.2% male.  Young males are however, the fastest growing user group.  For more on Instagram demographics to assess if they are your target audience, go here.

Where In The World Do They All Come From?

Instagram is HUUUGE in India and the highest level of reach is Brunei, but let’s focus for now on western markets, where shopping is a huge leisure pastime.  You might think that the U.S. adult population would be massive too, but surprisingly, from Hootsuite’s research, 14% of American adults remained unaware of what Instagram is about. 59% visit Instagram daily, with 38% of these checking in a few times in a day.  The instant consumability makes this platform particularly appealing for people with busy lives, but it also means that marketers have to keep their content fresh across the day.

Back in 2020, among Western Europeans there was 17% user growth, which is impressive, but of course, lock-down saw many more of us tapping into digital social more.  Pre-pandemic eMarketer predicted growth as low as 5.2% for this region, but they have revised upwards twice in 2022 alone.

What Are Instagram Users Tapping Their Fingers To?

News isn’t particularly a source of attention here, with only one in ten using this platform for that; in fact over 40% don’t trust it for finding their truth.  Users tend to scroll through Instagram Stories, check out Livestreams, or watch Reels. Smart brands will deliver great infotainment across Instagram’s different features, so followers’ 30 minutes tuning in time keeps them amused and coming back for more.

90% of users will be watching Instagram videos each week, so companies will need to plan and deploy video marketing campaigns that can fulfil expectations via Stories, Reels and Instagram Live.  @InstagramForBusiness has posted their survey result figure of 91% cinephiles liking to watch video.

Tell Your Story

We keep reading about the human enjoyment of a good story and this is borne out with some of the Instagram statistics related to adopting this marketing tactic …  For instance, 500 million users were telling their Instagram Stories every day up to 2019; up to date stat’s are a trade secret, but we all know the way social media has experienced explosive growth during the pandemic. 

The more creative brands are flourishing with this marketing strategy, hardly surprising when 58% of Instagram users have told the platform that they get more interested in a brand after experiencing a story which mentions it.  Even more encouraging for video story brand building is the finding that 50% of Instagrammers have clicked through to a website to make a purchase after seeing something that piqued their interest in a Story.  Amazingly, Brand Stories experience a 86% viewing completion rate; that’s impactful…

Of course pure entertainment will generate even more viewing completions, but work in some #Love, sports, funny dogs, inspirational creations, or something topical and you will be working this channel’s hot spots! Check out Hootsuite’s recommended ”hacks for scheduling Instagram Stories”, to get your viewers warming to your offering faster.  Hootsuite tell us that the most active brands are posting stories almost twenty times in a month and the trend in popularity continues to grow, so every other day isn’t too often, in case you are wondering.

Business Is Serious

If you’re thinking stories are purely for entertainment purposes, however, think again.  90% of users here will follow at least one business.  If you haven’t grasped the concept of community and how this connects to consumption yet, it’s time to talk to people using Instagram for making decisions on buying.  Instagram instruct businesses that their platform is ideal to  “…grow your community and deepen your connection with current and future customers.”

With their innovations in business tools, not only Shopping for Instagram Live, business account holders are growing their followers by 1.69% on average, every month; those increments make the difference in competing and sustainability. They are a good target aim too.  50% of users are finding new brands, products or services here

Two thirds claim that Instagram helps them have more meaningful interactions with brands.  In the past, commercial success was about pure quantitative stat’s like revenues, profits, product development. Today’s market integrates those objective metrics with the qualitative experiences that customers are looking to have in their shopping experiences. Consumerism can feel empty and meaningless, without understanding brand vision and values.  These are exactly the communications Instagram now lets you share and monitor results in real time, to drive your other metrics longer term.

So, keep telling your stories and create the kind of invaluable connections Instagrammers look for.  This feedback loop is digital fuel to your social media investments.

Sam Nouri
Sam Nouri
Hi! I'm Sam Nouri, the founder of AdsRunner. I've been working as a full-funnel digital marketer for nearly a decade, and have managed millions in ad spend for my clients. My aim is to help businesses scale and hit their growth milestones one at a time using innovative advertising methods and proven digital marketing strategies across all digital channels.
Sam Nouri
Sam Nouri
Hi! I'm Sam Nouri, the founder of AdsRunner. I've been working as a full-funnel digital marketer for nearly a decade, and have managed millions in ad spend for my clients. My aim is to help businesses scale and hit their growth milestones one at a time using innovative advertising methods and proven digital marketing strategies across all digital channels.