In January 2019, photo sharing platform Instagram reported 500 million daily active Stories users worldwide, up from 400 million global DAU in June 2018. Stories is a feature of the app allowing users post photo and video sequences that disappear 24 hours after being posted. Instagram usage Instagram has over one billion monthly active users and is one of the most popular social networks worldwide. The app allows users to edit and share photos with other users, either publicly or with pre-approved followers. In 2018, the number of Instagram users in the United States was almost 105 million users, with U.S. Instagram audiences set to grow to 131 million users by 2022. As of April 2019, it was found that the United States, Brazil and India had the largest Instagram audiences with the United States heading the ranking by a wide margin. Users between the ages of 25 and 34 years constituted the biggest demographic group, followed by users aged 18 to 24 years. Overall, over two thirds of global Instagram audiences were aged 34 and younger. Advertising and marketing on Instagram Due to the visual nature of the platform, Instagram is a perfect opportunity for brands and retailers to display their products in a flattering way. Many celebrities and influencers generate a sizable income by posting ads in the form of sponsored posts on Instagram. In 2018, there were approximately 3.7 million sponsored influencer posts on the platform. The most popular content type of Instagram posts by influencers worldwide were photos – videos accounted for just 13.56 percent of influencer posts.

In 2019, brands with over 200 thousand followers had an Instagram post reach rate of 13.8 percent and an Instagram stories reach rate of just 2.3 percent. In comparison, smaller brands with under 10 thousand followers had a post reach rate of 26.6 percent and a stories reach rate of 8.4 percent.

As of April 2024, almost 32 percent of global Instagram audiences were aged between 18 and 24 years, and 30.6 percent of users were aged between 25 and 34 years. Overall, 16 percent of users belonged to the 35 to 44 year age group. Instagram users With roughly one billion monthly active users, Instagram belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide. The social photo sharing app is especially popular in India and in the United States, which have respectively 362.9 million and 169.7 million Instagram users each. Instagram features One of the most popular features of Instagram is Stories. Users can post photos and videos to their Stories stream and the content is live for others to view for 24 hours before it disappears. In January 2019, the company reported that there were 500 million daily active Instagram Stories users. Instagram Stories directly competes with Snapchat, another photo sharing app that initially became famous due to it’s “vanishing photos” feature. As of the second quarter of 2021, Snapchat had 293 million daily active users.

Watching other people's Instagram Stories was the most popular Instagram activity among Instagram users in the United States. During the March 2020 survey, 42 percent of respondents stated that they had watched other people's Instagram Stories in the past month. A further 39 percent of respondents indicated that they had browsed their feeds for posts from Instagram friends or accounts they were following.

The net advertising revenue of Instagram Stories worldwide was expected to amount to 11.43 billion U.S. dollars in 2021, marking an increase from the previous year's value of 6.9 billion. Instagram Stories ad revenue was expected to further increase over the following two years, reaching a projected 20.03 billion dollars in 2023.

Between April 2019 to September 2020, brands with over 100 thousand followers on Instagram posted 44.95 percent image stories and 55.05 percent video stories. Brand IG accounts with under 5 thousand followers posted 50.08 percent image stories and 49.92 percent video stories.

In 2019, the top 25 percent of brands on Instagram had a tap back rate of 4.6 percent on their stories, up from 4.3 percent in the previous year. Additionally, brands in the bottom 25 percent had a tap back rate of 2.3 percent in 2019, up from 2.2 percent in 2018. A tap backward on an Instagram stories post indicates that the viewer wanted to return to the previous image for another look.

From April 2019 to September 2020, there was a 100 percent retention rate among Instagram users worldwide when brands posted one story per day. In comparison, there was only a 59.4 percent retention rate among IG users when brands posted 15 Stories per day.

In 2024, Instagram Stories were the most used format on the social media platform. Huge accounts, those with over 50,000 followers, posted an average of 46 Stories per week. Big and Medium accounts posted an average of 30.4 and 19.3 Stories every week on Instagram, respectively.

According to a study conducted between 2023 and 2024, Instagram posts from accounts with between 10,001 and 50,000 followers reached an average of 2,909 Instagram users. Overall, stories reached 642 Instagram users, and reels reached 9,649 users.

In 2019, a survey revealed that the Italian user base of influencers watched stories mostly on Instagram. Data show that 37 percent of users buying products suggested by influencers watched Instagram stories exclusively, while 35 percent of them stated they used both Instagram and Facebook platforms.

In 2023, Instagram Stories were by far the most common type of content posted on the social media platform. Overall, accounts with 50 thousand to 45 million followers posted an average of 130 Instagram Stories per week, as well as 28 posts, and 19 Reels.

In 2021, there were 1.21 billion monthly active users of Meta's Instagram, making up over 28 percent of the world's internet users. By 2025, it has been forecast that there will be 1.44 billion monthly active users of the social media platform, which would account for 31.2 percent of global internet users.

How popular is Instagram?

Instagram, as of January 2022, was the fourth most popular social media platform in the world in terms of user numbers. YouTube and WhatsApp ranked in second and third place, respectively, whilst Facebook remained the most popular, with almost three billion monthly active users worldwide.

India had the largest number of Instagram users as of January 2022, with a total of over 230 million users in the country. The second-largest Instagram audience could be found in the United States, with almost 160 million people subscribing to the photo and video sharing app.

Gen Z and Instagram

As of September 2021, Gen Z users in the United States spent an average of five hours per week on Instagram. Although Instagram ranked third in terms of hours per week spent on the platform, Gen Z users spent considerably more time on TikTok, amounting to a weekly average of over 10 hours being spent on the mobile-first video app.

Most followed accounts on Instagram

As of May 2022, Instagram’s own account had 504.37 million followers. In terms of celebrities, Portuguese footballer Cristiano Ronaldo (@chistiano) had over 440.41 million followers on the social network. Moreover, the average media value of an Instagram post by Ronaldo was over 985,000 U.S. dollars.

The most liked post on Instagram as of May 2022 was Photo of an Egg, which was posted in 2019 by the account @world_record_egg. Photo of an Egg has not only exceeded 55 million likes on the platform, but it also has nearly 3.5 million comments, and the account itself has over 4.5 million Instagram followers. After mysterious posts published by the account, World Record Egg revealed itself as part of a mental health campaign aimed at the difficulties and demands of using social media.

How many people use Instagram?

Instagram is a social media app which focuses on photo and video sharing. It is owned by Facebook, which recently rebranded as Meta, in a move towards the metaverse. As of December 2021, Instagram reached a new milestone of 2 billion active users worldwide. The platform previously reached 1 billion users in June 2018.

Users aged 25 to 34 years made up the biggest Instagram user group by age worldwide, followed by 18 to 24 year olds. Overall, men accounted for 51.6 percent of global Instagram users.

Most popular Instagram accounts and content

Footballer Cristiano Ronaldo was the most followed person on Instagram as of 2021, with approximately 315 million followers. Ranked in second and third position were the Rock and Ariana Grande, both having over 250 million followers each.

It’s not only athletes and actors who drive the views on Instagram though. Instagram has long since become a medium for people and communities to spread their messages, and in the past two years, social activists and educators have used Instagram for their movements. Political and educational accounts generate high engagement rates with their content. Posts from political accounts receive an average engagement rate of 2.74 percent and educational posts receive an average of 2.56 percent.

Social media usage worldwide

There are 3.4 billion social media users worldwide and this is expected to increase to 4.41 billion by 2025. Instagram is most popular in India with a total of 201.1 million users, followed by the U.S. with 157.1 million and Brazil with 114.9 million active users. Instagram is the fourth most popular social media site in the world, after Facebook, YouTube and WhatsApp, respectively.

As of October 2021, Brunei was the country with the highest Instagram audience reach with 92 percent of the population using the platform. This was followed by Guam with 79.2 percent and the Cayman Islands with 78.8 percent audience reach.

As of October 2021, Facebook had almost 3 billion users worldwide. The penetration rate for Facebook in the United States in 2021 was 70.59 percent and it is expected to reach 76.87 percent by 2026.

In 2019, a survey revealed that 35 percent of Italian Millennials preferred to watch Instagram stories, while only 15 percent of them did it on Facebook. On the contrary, respondents from the Generation Z showed a striking preference for the Instagram stories (73 percent). Users between 45 and 54 years were not much attracted by the stories' videos, as 30 percent of them stated they did not watch Facebook or Instagram stories.

From April 2019 to September 2020, brands with over 100 thousand followers on Instagram posted an average 14.46 stories per month. Additionally, brands fewer than 5k followers posted only posted approximately three stories per month.

In 2019, brands with over 200 thousand followers on Instagram had an Instagram story reach rate of 2.3 percent, down from 4.2 percent in the previous year. Additionally, Instagram accounts with under 10 thousand followers had a reach rate of 8.4 percent in 2019, a decline from 11.3 percent in 2018.

In Italy, a survey from 2019 revealed that 36 percent of women preferred to watch Instagram stories, while only 18 percent of them did it on Facebook. Male users did not show a clear preference for one of the two platforms.

The share of French influencers posting stories on their Instagram profiles varies among the active social media users in 2020. Thus, the minority of one percent did not posts stories at all, compared to 35 percent who posted between one and three stories on a daily basis.

In 2019, a study was conducted on the sates of Instagram influencer marketing. It revealed that in October of 2019, there were 333 thousand sponsored stories and 311 thousand sponsored posts on Instagram. In contrast, in February 2019 there were only 244 thousand sponsored stories and 206 thousand sponsored posts on the social app.