21 Instagram Facts That You Should Know

Since its initial launch in October 2010, Instagram has grown into the second most used social media platform today. It didn’t hurt the fact that Instagram was acquired by Facebook in April 2012 for approximately US$1 billion in cash and stock. A real bargain when you see the type of revenue it generates today. In sum, at the young age of 7 years old, Instagram has already achieved astonishing numbers that every marketer that wants to be in the game should be paying attention to. Here are some highlights…

There are over 800 million Instagram users as of September 2017.
Of that 800 million, 500 million are active daily users.
There are 16,600,000 Google searches for “instagram” per month.
51% of Instagram users access the platform daily, and 35% say they look at the platform several times per day.
95 million photos and videos are shared on Instagram per day.
Over 40 billion photos and videos have been shared on the Instagram platform since its conception.
100 million users use the “stories” feature daily.
Instagram posts with at least one hashtag average 12.6% more engagement than those without.
The best time to post on Instagram for the most engagement is at 5 PM on Wednesdays.
As of December 2016, there were over 282 million selfies on Instagram.
The most used emoji is the heart <3
The most popular filters are Clarendon, Gingham and Juno/Lark.
There are 15 million registered businesses using Instagram business profiles.
Instagram has 1 million monthly active advertisers—up from just 200,000 in March 2016.
60% of the top brands on Instagram use the same filter for every post.
In March 2017, over 120 million Instagrammers visited a website, got directions, called, emailed, or direct messaged to learn about a business based on an Instagram ad.
Instagram is estimated to have brought in $1.53 billion in global mobile ad revenue in 2016, which is a 144 percent increase year-over-year and would amount to 8.4 percent of Facebook’s global mobile ad revenue according to International Business Times.
eMarketer projects that Instagram’s global mobile ad revenues will reach $2.81 billion this year, accounting for over 10 percent of parent company Facebook’s global ad revenues.
This year, 7% of U.S. companies will use Instagram for marketing, edging out Twitter for the first time.
50% of Instagram users follow at least one business.
60% of users say that they have learned about a product or service on the platform.