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Everything Your E-Commerce Brand Needs to Know About Instagram
Fascinating Instagram Facts to Build Brand Presence and Grow Your Prospective Customer Base
We all know Instagram has become a major game changer for consumers and businesses globally. As Facebook refocuses on connecting people with content from family and friends, Instagram has become “the new home for brands,” where engagement is high, followers are brand-loyal, and real business goals can be achieved. Below are a few interesting facts your e-commerce brand needs to know in order to advantage of the platforms’ exploding popularity as an ad channel.
Instagram at a glance
The platform has more than 1 billion active monthly users.
More than 500 million people use Instagram daily.
400 million people use Instagram Stories daily.
Instagram has 58 times more engagement per follower than Facebook.
An average user spends 53 minutes on Instagram daily.
50.7% of Instagram users worldwide are female, while 49.3% are male.
61% of Instagram users are 18 to 34 years old.
Instagram for business
More than 200 million Instagram users visit at least one business profile daily.
75% of users reportedly visited a website or made a purchase after seeing an Instagram ad
60% of people say they’ve discovered a new product on Instagram
50% of Instagram users follow at least one business
Top brands post 4.9 times per week on Instagram
Wednesdays are the most expensive days to run Instagram Ads.
(www.marketingprofs.com)
Advertising Dos and Dont’s
DO tag people in your posts
Tagging can be useful if you partner with other businesses or influencers and want to get more brand exposure through reposting or mentioning. In fact, posts that mention users see up to 56% more engagement that posts that don’t. You can use up to 30 tags on a post, but 9 is ideal.
DO tag locations in your posts
Selecting the right Instagram location for your content can play a pivotal role in helping you extend your reach. Instagram has slowly made their location feature more and more powerful and now posts with a location tag have 79% higher engagement than post without.
DO use photos with faces
People like people and a study conducted at Georgia Tech confirmed this statement is true for Instagram posts as well. They analyzed 1.1 million randomly-selected Instagram photos with faces detection software and found that those with faces receive 38% more likes.
DO feature products
Research from Gartner L2 found that Instagram users clearly enjoy seeing photos of products, with 65% of top-performing brand posts featuring a product of some kind. However, this doesn’t mean you should consistently post tons of product photos. It’s best to use to 80/20 rule which means roughly 20% of your content should be promotional and 80% should provide value for your audience as educational or entertainment.
DON’T forget your hashtags
Did you know that posts with at least one hashtag get 12.6% more engagement than those without? Hashtags are key to securing more exposure—without them, only your followers will see what you post. You can use up to 30 tags on a post, but 5–10 is ideal—including your brand name. It’s also better to post hashtags in the first comment of your post, rather than the caption, so the text looks neat and clutter-free.
DON’T underestimate the power of a great caption
Instagram’s algorithm tends to boost posts that receive the most likes or comments—so when it comes to prospects seeing your posts, a good caption could make all the difference. Captions can be as long as 2,200 characters and should entice users with relevant and valuable information that complements the visuals. You should also use CTAs in your captions to drive engagement—particularly those with action- focused language like “Use,” “Start,” and “Get,” for example.
DON’T post at random times
Thanks to Sprout Social’s decision to round up all the studies they could find on when to share content, marketers can now use their findings to figure out the best times to post to maximize engagement.
