Many of the popular social media statistic reports are now out and I’ve taken the information about Instagram and compiled it all for you here. Instagram has grown considerably since this time last year and I’m excited to see some more accurate numbers to reflect the influence of this platform. Here are the Instagram statistics for 2014.

User Information

The popularity of Instagram continues to grow. As of December 2013, 17% of all online adults now use Instagram. This compares with 18% of online adults who use Twitter, 21% who use Pinterest, and 22% who use LinkedIn (1).

Within those users who use Instagram, it isn’t just teenagers. Yes, the 18-29 demographic has the largest usage. 37% of users in this demographic use Instagram. However, 18% of those in the 30-49 demographic and 6% of those in the 50-64 demographic also use Instagram (1).

When it comes to frequency of site use, Instagram is almost as popular as Facebook. In fact, Instagram is second only to Facebook. 57% of Instagram users check their accounts daily compared with 63% of Facebook users. And 35% of Instagram users check their accounts multiple times a day, compared with 40% of Facebook users who check multiple times a day (1).

Instagram users spend an average of 257 minutes a month on the site (2). That’s over 4 solid hours! If you’re not taking advantage of your audience’s time on Instagram, you are missing out.

The distribution of Instagram users by gender does favor females in general, with 68% female users (2). However, depending on your country or your audience’s geographic location, the opposite may be true. The Middle East and India have much higher male demographic usage on Instagram (3).

And to further validate my complaint about why new updates are always released to iOS devices first, Instagram users are equally distributed with about 50% each on Android and iOS devices (2).

Engagement Levels

Instagram continues to dominate in the area of engagement compared with all other social media sites. Instagram released their milestone of 150 million active users back in September 2013 (4). I’m sure they are significantly higher than that now, though we’re still waiting on an updated statistic.

Users are highly active on Instagram. They upload an average of 55 million photos every day! And those photos and users generate 1.2 BILLION likes daily (4)! With 8500 likes per second and 1000 comments per second, it is easy to understand how active Instagram users really are. In fact, Instagram engagement is 15 times greater than engagement levels on Facebook (2). And with 43% of accounts posting more than once a day (2), the ability to connect brands and audiences is a regular reality.

Brand Information

Many find it easy to understand the popularity of Instagram for personal use but fail to understand the significance of this platform for brands and businesses. This graph from Nitrogram (3) shows a representation of the industries who have adopted Instagram into their social media strategies. As you can see, Instagram is being quickly adopted by most major industries.

As more and more personal users join and frequent the site, the more important it will be for brands to maximize their use of Instagram as well. Many brands are currently using the site and more are joining every day.

Brands are currently posting an average of 5.5 times a week and 43% of brands are posting more than once a day (2).

According to the study by L2 (which analyzed 249 Prestige Brands), 93% of those prestige brands are using Instagram now. This is up from 63% in July 2013 (2). Of those prestige brands, 72% are posting videos. However, videos only account for about 4% of all brand content.

Engagement is also higher on photos by 1.5 times for these prestige brands (2). Photos are still the dominant way to interact with your Instagram audience. But, if you can make good use of videos, you could move ahead of your competition in connecting with your audience.

In terms of connecting with their audiences, only 14% of the prestige brands were found to be using User Generated Content (UGC) on their accounts (2). If you want to really highlight your customers and audience, find ways to incorporate more UGC into your Instagram strategy.

The popularity of Instagram continues to grow through the promotion and advertising on other social media sites. 54% of brands include an Instagram custom tab on their Facebook page to encourage Facebook fans to follow and engage with them on Instagram (2).

Predictably, retail and fashion brands are the most commonly found brands in the top 10 largest Instagram communities. And beauty brands are currently the fastest growing industry and also receive the highest levels of engagement on Instagram (2). This is understandable – these industries lend themselves to highly visual content and usually target women (the major demographic on Instagram). However, similar trends are common on other social media sites and by no means indicate that other industries can’t be successful on Instagram.

So there are your latest Instagram statistics for 2014. If you aren’t yet using Instagram, it really is time to start considering it. If you would like assistance in creating an Instagram strategy or learning about how you can use Instagram for your business, please contact me!

Sources: 1. Pew Study – Social Media Update 2013 2. L2 Intelligence Report – Instagram 2014 3. Nitrogram – Instagram Statistics 4. Instagram – Press Page