Today we embark on our fourth weekly #ClickZChat, where the good people of SEW and ClickZ take to Twitter to discuss with our expert friends and followers a particularly burning digital marketing related issue.
For this week’s chat, we’ll be talking about Instagram and its rise in value for marketers, so please join us at 12pm EST (5pm UK) on Wednesday 20 April.
As preparation for the discussion, I’ve pulled together as many stats relating to Instagram as I could possibly find, many of which should provide fuel for the conversation and maybe aid your own social media strategy.
Please note: many of these stats were researched and published in a ClickZ article by Leighann Morris from last year, and I have updated the numbers wherever possible.
1. Instagram has more than 400 million monthly active users
2. More than 75% of those users are outside the U.S.
3. More than 30 billion photos have been shared
4. Instagram users generate 3.5 billion likes per day
5. More than 80 million photos are uploaded per day
6. Instagam’s monthly userbase has grown from 90 million in Jan 2013, to 400 million in September 2015.
7. Instagram counted 77.6 million users in the US in 2015.
8. 27.6% of the US population used Instagram in 2015.
9. There is a fairly even gender split between Instagram users: 51% male/49% female.
10. Monthly US Instagram users are expected to reach 111.6 million by 2019. 
11. In 2012 Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion, a relative bargain compared to the $14 billion it paid for WhatsApp in 2014. Here’s a chart of Facebook’s other recent acquisitions…
12. In February 2014 in the US, Instagram had 6.5 million multi-platform users, 20 million desktop users, and 40 million mobile users.
13. As of January 2014, 41% (Read more...) of US Android users who had installed Instagram were also daily active users. 
14. As of September 2015, the greatest share of traffic to Instagram was from the US (23.94%) while traffic from the United Kingdom accounted for 3.57% of site visits.
15. 8% of Instagram accounts are reportedly fake spam-bot accounts and 30% are inactive, according to Business Insider.
16. These are the 10 most popular retailers on Instagram by follower numbers:
1) Nike
2) Adidas Originals
3) Louis Vuitton
4) Dolce & Gabbana
5) Michael Kors
6) Adidas
7) Dior
8) Christian Louboutin
9) Gucci
10) Prada
17. Instagram comes 8th in Statista’s chart of leading social networks worldwide as of April 2016, ranked by number of active users (in millions). It overtook Twitter at the end of last year.
18. In a survey of US teens, 11% of respondents had 101 – 200 followers on Instagram. The US teen average was 150 followers. According to a February 2015 survey, 59% of US teens regularly accessed the social network.
19. As of April 2015, 35% of US users accessed Instagram several times a day. By 2019, the total number of Instagram users in the United States is expected to double the 2014 figure.
20. Instagram continues to rise in popularity among teenagers. In 2015, 33% of US teens chose Instagram as their personal number one social network, up from just 12% in 2012. This compares favourably with Facebook and Twitter, which were chosen by 14 and 20% of the respondents, respectively.
21. 50% of comments are posted in the first six hours.
22. According to Simply Measured, there’s little correlation between text length and engagement rate.
23. Adding a location to posts results in 79% higher engagement.
[Sources: Statista, Sprout Social, DMR]
If you’d like to discuss your own triumphs and challenges in using Instagram as a marketer we’d love to hear your opinions, so please join us for #ClickZChat.
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