Instagram was developed by Kevin Systrom and Mike Krieger in 2010.
Instagram was originally named Burbn.
Instagram was originally a mobile check-in app. Realizing that it was similar to Foursquare, Systrom and Krieger redeveloped Instagram’s focus to photo-sharing which quickly became popular among its users.
Burbn was renamed Instagram, a combination of “instant camera” and “telegram”.
On March 5, 2010, Instagram received its first funding of $500,000 on a seed funding round with Andreesen Horowitz and Baseline Ventures.
On October 6, 2010, Instagram was launched on iOS.
Three months after Instagram launched, it reached 1 million monthly active users.
In January 2011, Instagram introduced hashtags to help users discover photos of one another.
There are 2 billion monthly active users on Instagram.
In 2018, the heart emoji was used over 14 billion times on Instagram.
The most used face filter on Instagram Stories is the Heart Eyes filter.
200 million+ businesses use Instagram to advertise, promote, or sell their products & services.
Instagram makes money through advertisements. They also gain revenue through their IG live where users can purchase badges. The price of the badges ranges from $0.99 to $4.99.
Aside from that, Instagram launched shopping checkout in 2019 where merchants on their platform can integrate Shopify, BigCommerce, ChannelAdvisor, CommerceHub, and other tools. Instagram charges fix selling fee of 5% per shipment. Shipments of less than $8 have a flat rate of $0.40 cents.
Facebook bought Instagram on April 09 2012, with $1 billion in cash and stocks. A lot of Wall Street people at the time were puzzled about why Facebook used that much money on a less than 2 years old platform with zero revenue and only 13 employees.
Mark Zuckerberg and other executives believed that Instagram became a threat to Facebook, large enough to siphon away any future profits from them. To solve this, they decided to buy the company instead of competing with it.
There are 634 million Instagram users that are aged 25 to 34. Young Instagram users compose 8.9% of the total Instagram user population.
Not too far away from the 25-34 age group is the 18-24 age bracket of Instagram users, as they cover 30.1% of the total IG covers.
The third most popular Instagram user age group is the 35-44 group, with almost 16% of the total users. That is just half of the most popular user group (25-34).
There were 500 million users who posted their Instagram stories each day according to Instagram last 2019. There are no recent numbers for this but it is probably a lot more now compared to 3 years ago.
It should also be noted that there are about 1.6 billion Instagram stories posted each day in 2022.
Hootsuite categorized influencers based on the number of followers. Instagram influencers with more than 1 million followers are considered mega-influencers.
Below you can see the criteria list for the categories of Instagram influencers:
There are a lot of factors that brands consider when paying Instagram influencers. These include engagement rate, followers, and the trends Influencers associate themselves with.
Instagram influencers earn money by advertising brands, products, and businesses. There are a lot of small parts and big parts moving behind this but let’s just have an overview of the most common ways influencers earn money on Instagram.
It is estimated that mega-influencers on Instagram make over $10,000 per sponsored posts.
Collaborating with Brands
promoting products of specific brands, being a brand ambassador, promoting the brand itself on specific sponsored posts.
Visual Creation for Brands
creating visuals for brands. e.g. Influencers wearing branded clothing, or watches.
Offering Influencer Services
Offering Influencer's special skills. e.g. photographers showcasing their skills
Selling Their Own Products
Influencers with their own businesses promote their own products on their accounts
Cristiano Ronaldo is the top-earning influencer on Instagram with a price of around $2.40 million per sponsored post. Coming in second is Kylie Jenner with a $1.84 million price for a sponsored post.
The first Instagram post was a photo of South Beach Harbor at Pier 38 by Mike Krieger. It was posted at 5:26 p.m. on July 16, 2010. On the same night, Kevin Systrom posted the second post with his dog and girlfriend’s foot together which was taken at 9:24 p.m.
The most liked post on Instagram is the photos of Lionel Messi and his teammates after winning FIFA World Cup 2022 with 74.4 million likes overtaking the egg photo with 58.8 million likes.
An interesting note to take, before FIFA World Cup 2022, the most liked Instagram post was the bird egg. The egg Instagram post held the number 1 rank for 47 months or almost 4 years.
Rank
Username
Owner
Description
Number of Likes
#1
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Photos of Lionel Messi with his teammates after winning FIFA World Cup 2022
74.4 million
#2
@world_record_egg
Chris Godfrey
Simple Photo of an Egg
58.8 million
#3
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Messi sleeping with the trophy in bed
54.3 million
#4
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Ronaldo and Messi playing chess for Louis Vuitton
42.6 million
#5
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Messi on a plane with the trophy
41.8 million
#6
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Messi celebrating FIFA World Cup 2022 in Argentina
34.1 million
#7
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Photo of Ronaldo after being eliminated from FIFA World Cup 2022
33.9 million
#8
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Photo of Ronaldo and Pelé as a remembrance
33.6 million
@alnassr_fc
Al Nassr FC
#9
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Ronaldo and Messi playing chess for Louis Vuitton
32.9 million
#10
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Announcement of twins pregnancy
32.7 million
@georginagio
Georgina Rodriguez
#11
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Photo of Ronaldo and Pelé as a remembrance
31.6 million
#12
@xxxtentacion
XXXTentacion
Last uploaded photo before his death
30.6 million
#13
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Team photos after FIFA World Cup 2022 match against Croatia
29.7 million
#14
@cristiano
Cristiano Ronaldo
Al Nassr FC presented Ronaldo to the fans
26.5 million
#15
@arianagrande
Ariana Grande
Wedding Photos with Dalton Gomez
26.4 million
#16
@zendaya
Zendaya
Birthday greeting post for Tom Holland
25.8 million
#17
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Photo post in remembrance of Pelé
25.7 million
#18
@tomholland2013
Tom Holland
Recreating Spiderman pointing meme
24.9 million
#20
@leomessi
Lionel Messi
Messi and team after winning against Mexico at FIFA World Cup 2022
The most commented Instagram post is by Alexandros Kopsialis with 43.2 million comments. It’s a photo of a paid partnership with La Vie En Rose where the winner can be chosen among the comments.
The giveaways included a car, Sony Playstations, and iPhone 12s.
Rank
Username
Account Owner
Description
Number of Comments
#1
alexandros_kopsialis
Alexandros Kopsialis
Paid partnership with La Vie En Rose. Giveaways include car, Sony Playstation 5, and iPhone 12.
43.2 million
#2
bizarapp
Bizarrap
Featuring Paulo Londra, a post reveal when comments reach a certain number.
23.1 million
#3
alexandros_kopsialis
Alexandros Kopsialis
Paid partnership with https://www.instagram.com/ammaroses_com/, another set of giveaways which also include car, phones, motorcycle and more.
Instagram’s own account holds the most number of followers on the platform with 587 million followers. Excluding the Instagram account, Cristiano Ronaldo has the largest following with 529 million followers.
How many people have over 1 million followers on Instagram?
There are 11.8 million Instagram users with over 1 million followers. There are 2 billion users on Instagram and 0.59% of those have over a million followers.
Meanwhile, 65.26% of Instagram users have 1,000 followers or less.
Followers
Percentage of people that have that number of followers
What is the best type of post to get likes on Instagram?
Video-type Instagram posts receive the most likes with an average of 1,097.95 likes. This also means that people will more likely to engage with video-type posts.
Carousel-type posts have 933.72 likes and Image type posts get an average of 476.15 likes.
Average Instagram Reel Reach by Number of Followers
Reels of Instagram accounts with around 500 followers and fewer are viewed by almost 9 times the number of their followers.
As we can see in the data below, the more the number of followers, the lesser the reach of their Instagram reels. This holds true for Instagram accounts with tens of millions of followers where only 64% of their followers viewed their reels.
Average Instagram Post Reach by Number of Followers
Instagram posts of users with up to 500 followers reach 77% of their followers. Meanwhile, Instagram profiles with a larger number of followers have a 19% of reach.
Instagram Business Profiles Reach: Reels, Posts, & Conversion Rates
This section presents us with information on business profiles’ reach on their reels and posts. This section also presents us with conversion rates per specific range of followers.
Average Instagram Reels Reach of Business Profiles
Instagram business profiles with less than 10,000 followers have the highest average percentage reach of 32.2% while Instagram business profiles with over 1 million followers have an 8.1% average percentage reach.
Instagram posts of business profiles with more than 1 million followers are viewed by only 1.2% of their followers. It means that at least 12,000 people saw their posts whether it’s for a new product or an update of information for a new product.
It should also be noted that business profiles with fewer followers have a higher percentage reach than those with a larger number of followers.
Instagram Reach Average Conversion Rate of Business Profiles
Aside from the engagement rate, it is also important to know the conversion rate of your Instagram posts. Conversion rate refers to how many people actually follow up on their interest in your post, whether they purchase a product or went on to visit your website.
Instagram business profiles with over 1 million followers have a conversation rate of 0.70%. This means that at least 7,000 people follow up on their interest in their posts.
Meanwhile, Instagram business profiles with less than 10,000 followers have the highest conversation rate of 2.6%.
Analyzing the engagement rate of business profiles on Instagram is important. It determines how a business will take action based on the engagement rate of its posts. This help determines which product posts interest the consumers more. It also helps business owners to understand which posts will grow more audience engagement. After all, more eyes on the products equate to more potential buyers.
Instagram users with over 1 million followers have an average of 9.2% engagement rate for feed posts. Meanwhile, Instagram users with less than 10,000 followers have the highest engagement rate of 12.0%.
Instagram users with 51,000 to 100,000 followers have the highest video engagement rate of 8.9% while Instagram users with less than 10,000 have the highest photo engagement rate of 12.0%. Meanwhile, Instagram users wi
Industries with the Highest Visual Content Engagement Rate on Instagram
CPG industry, or consumer packaged goods, has the highest visual content engagement rate in Instagram with a 10.2% photo engagement rate and 9.0% video engagement rate.
An Instagram user spends an average of 11.2 hours per month and 24 to 32 minutes per day on Instagram. The time spent on the app and platform differs by age range according to Instagram’s report. Here is a clearer overview:
There are 52.15 million Instagram users in Turkey. Users in Turkey have an average time spent of 20.2 per month on Instagram. Meanwhile, Instagram users from Argentina and Indonesia spend 16.6 hours and 15.6 hours on Instagram respectively.
Instagram has daily unique visitors of over 200 million people on both their website and mobile app. Instagram also receives 6.2 million visits each month with 10.70 pages per visitor.
Instagram is currently ranked 11 by Alexa with a reach of 4.2% of global internet users.
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