Instagram has always been committed to its mission of uplifting the creators on the platform to new heights. This has been a continuum year after year, with evident improvements in the tools and services they offer. In order to support influencers and creators, Instagram improved the creator marketplace functionality and introduced multiple innovative features. Some of these are subscriptions, a creator's portfolio, support badges, achievements, and reel bonuses. 2023 is yet another year of the social media platform working on multiple new updates in order to make the UX more sophisticated and satisfying.

We will take a closer look at the user statistics, demographics, ad statistics, overall engagements, Story and Reel stats, marketing and business activities that have taken place for the last couple on month. Instagram continues to add value to the experience of being on the platform for its users with every single update that is being rolled out. Instead of changing platform updates on Meta, raw data shows exactly where Instagram stands right now. It also gives insight into the direction the changes will likely taken in the upcoming years.

User statistics 

There are more than 2 billion active users on the application, with around 1.4 million users using it on a daily basis. According to the latest Meta earnings call, more than 2 billion people now use the platform monthly. This is quite impressive in relation to the constant competition Instagram faces from other social media platforms (especially of the similar niche, which is visual. Think Tik-Tok, YouTube, Pinterest). Let us break down the demographics that make up the wide range of users on Instagram. 

Demographics Statistics 

Gender 

Alongside male and female, there are multiple other gender options that are available for Meta reporting. However, the stats mostly focus on the former two. The platform has a slightly higher number of male users compared to females. Instagram's audience is 52.2% male and 47.8% female. This is different from previous years, when the audience was a little bit more dominated by females. About 9.5% of Instagram users may be bots. This is 95 million of the user population. This on the average will cost marketers $1.3 billion. Of the 4.48 billion internet users worldwide, approximately 30.94% regularly use Instagram. 21% of Instagram users log in weekly, while 16% log in less often than that. 

Age Range

• IG users between the ages of 16 and 24 prefer Instagram to all other social platforms. If that’s an age group you’d like to reach to, then Instagram is the place you want to focus your SMM strategy.
• Women between the ages of 25-34 also prefer to use Instagram to all the other social media platforms, although men in this age range prefer Facebook. 
• Pew Research also found that almost half of Americans aged 18 and older make use of the platform.
• Gen Z, 61% of people between the ages of 12-17 use Instagram weekly. This is an increase of 4% from last year's statistics. This clearly shows that social media is shifting in this aspect of the demographic. 
• In summary, Instagram users are under 34 years of age. 

Location:

India ranks for the highest location of most Instagram users in the world with 249 million population. This number is followed by the 147 million users who log in from the United States. Brazil comes in third place with 117 million, followed by Indonesia and Turkey. This information will help you define your target audience on the platform. A valuable insight for SMM strategists planning for implementing new ways of localization or going global.

Usage Stats

Instagram is used by 25.31% of the world’s population. Instagram has experienced growing usage in the platform over the years with an annual increase of 5.79% from 2021. On the average usage time spent on the application, Instagram ranks fifth amongst all social platforms. YouTube ranks the highest under this ranking. Instagram Users spend an average of 11.7 hours on the application every month. If you do the divisions, that is almost half a day users spend on the platform consuming content. In 2022, Instagram ranked higher than TikTok in terms of stage time spent. However, e-marketers project that by 2024, they will be tied. 

Story Statistics 

Audience: 

The Instagram story fervor is still going strong, with 70% of Instagram users watching them on a daily basis, so now is a good time to start using Instagram stories in your marketing plan, if you haven’t already done so. 4% of Instagram users post stories daily. The daily active users on Stories reach 500 million. The potential audience that can view ads on Instagram stories is 996 million. To better explain this, you have the potential of reaching 1.32 billion users on your main feed. However, this does not necessarily mean that the main feed is better for placing ads. You just need to know where your audience spends most of their time. To get a better idea of which of these gets more attention from your audience, you can simply check your Instagram analytics. It will provide you with useful data to select the best place to leverage on.

Brand Stories: 

Brands on average post 17 stories per month. This should encourage you to cut yourself some slack. Statistics show that even the most active brands do not post stories every other day. However, when it comes to branding your Story correctly, it takes a lot of time and resources, so such numbers make sense for businesses. Nevertheless, Story is an amazing feature that has become a necessity in a SMM strategy.

Reels Statistics 

View: 

The potential audience that views Instagram reels reaches up to 758.5 million users. As mentioned earlier, feed ads have the potential to reach up to 1.32 billion people and Stories can reach up to 996 million users. It is expected for these numbers to change in the coming years as reels are becoming more and more mainstream. These statistics show that reels have an average reach engagement rate of 1.95%. In total, 71.9% of the content on Instagram remains photo posts. 

Resharing: 

On average, people reshare videos 1 billion times a day through direct messages. Reels have been established as the best way to put your brand in front of people who do not already follow your account. This is important to note because it's another way through which you can expand your reach. If you haven’t started using reels to your advantage, now is the time to do so.

Average usage time: 

People scroll around watching reels the majority of the time they spend on the platform. Reels take up to 30% of the total time of using Instagram for most. Based on statistics, this number is going up faster than expected. If you do not already have a strategy in place for Instagram reels, make 2023 your year to break into this fast-growing in-built tool. One way you can use the statistics to your advantage is to keep important content in your highlights. By doing so, every time a new user visits your Instagram profile, they can check out relevant Reels (and Stories). Combining the two is also a great option.

Business Statistics 

Instagram is ranked as the No. 1 social media platform for people when it comes to connecting with brands. No wondering if Instagram is worth a shot for your business. The answer is a definite yes! Instagram has created ways for business owners to expand their businesses online in a more effective way than any other social media platform. You can create shippable feeds, tag products on reels, stories, and posts, create your own store, and so much more. As a business owner, you can even optimize your bio to make it professional yet remain personal. You can include a link to your business page and direct more people to it. 

More than 25 million businesses use Instagram to advertise their products and services. 90% of accounts follow at least one business profile on Instagram. Monthly, over 150 million people use Instagram to relate directly with businesses. 36% of businesses use Stories to promote their products. 81% of Instagram users use the application to research new products and services. 98% of fashion brands make use of Instagram. 93% of marketers have used Instagram to gain more customers. 74% of marketers want to reach new customers, 69% want to improve brand awareness, and 46% want to host sales. A survey shows that 62% of users say they are more interested in a brand when they see it in their Stories.

Instagram Engagements

Engagement rates on Instagram are at a high level thanks to the power of reels. Instagram has moved from being a photo-only sharing app to a video-sharing platform. This made Instagram emphasize the use of both long-form and short-form video content. Statistics show the importance of using "real faces" in creating video content for promotion, has generated higher engagements. Since the introduction of video content on the platforms, Instagram has seen an 80% increase in the time users spend on the platform.

Still on the emphasis on using real face, statistics show that they perform almost 40% better than content creators that never show their "face" (not literally, showing their life, brand, products, ect). The average engagement rate for photo posts is 0.81%, video post is 0.61% while carousel posts are 1.08%. Short-form video content (Reels) has 22% more interaction on the platform than long-form video content. A total of 2 billion people interact with it every month. The highest Instagram reels engagement rates belong to the accounts with less than 5,000 followers, reaching up to 3.79% on average. Business accounts with less than 10,000 followers have a 1.11% engagement rate on average. Business accounts with followers ranging from 10,000 to 100,000 have an engagement rate of 0.93%.

Likes & Hashtags: 

A total of 1.2 billion likes are received on Instagram every day. Users like 4.2 billion posts on Instagram on a daily basis. Longer captions get better engagement than shorter ones. Tagging a location in your posts also gets 79% more engagement than those without tags. 

Ad statistics 

Instagram provides you with a wide range of advertising features that help promote your business in a non-intrusive way. Your ads can be targeted at different demographics. Before you start using ads, consider pitching your best-performing posts. Instagram ads have the potential to reach 849.3 million users on the platform. Marketers spend 69% of their budget on influencer marketing on Instagram. The revenue from Instagram Story ads is predicted to increase to a whooping $20.03 billion in 2023.

Conclusion

Here's a quick sum up of the updated Instagram statistics for the year 2023 so far. Use them to plan your posts, schedule your activity, improve your business, and get the desired outcome from the platform. Instagram does not seem to be declining any time soon, but it's interesting to see what direction the platform is going to take after being acquired by Meta and continuously offering effective changes to its interface and operation.