Stacy Jo Dixon
Research expert covering social media usage worldwide
Instagram - statistics & facts
Instagram users are busy; either creating the picture-perfect post or keeping up with celebrities and sports stars. The highly addictive platform keeps users engaged and entertained by offering an endless number of fun filters and ‘positive vibes’ content. There is however much more than meets the eye with this app - Instagram set the bar for today’s booming content creator and influencer industry that many people have successfully forged into a career, proving there is a lot more to this social network than just a carefully curated window to the world.
Instagram users expect more varied types of content from the platform than simply picture-perfect shots, indicating that the social network may need to keep evolving to satisfy the needs of younger users.
Instagram’s global success
Instagram boasts two billion monthly active users worldwide as of early 2024, giving Facebook and YouTube some much needed competition. The platform’s audience is far reaching, and the country with the largest Instagram audience is India, which has about 360 million users. With 169 million and 134 million users, respectively, the United States and Brazil rank second and third. People between the ages of 18 and 24 are the app's most avid users, making up over 31 percent of its total user base, showing this is a social media platform with which Millennials and older Generation Z connect with.How important is Instagram for marketers?
Social media marketing is one of the most effective methods for promoting products and services. In 2023, 80 percent of global marketers used Instagram to advertise their businesses. This made Instagram the second most popular social media network for advertising. From a marketing standpoint, Instagram is more influential than LinkedIn, YouTube, X (formerly Twitter), and TikTok, yet the app remains in Facebook’s shadow.Instagram vs reality
As with most social media platforms, Instagram grapples with keeping users and their data safe. In September 2022, Instagram was fined 405 million euros by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) for violations of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) regarding the processing of children’s data. Instagram’s parent company Meta also faced fines as recently as May 2023, when the DPC issued a penalty of 1.2 billion euros due to the violation of EU digital privacy law.Can Instagram keep younger audiences engaged?
Although younger social media users are drawn to TikTok and Snapchat for their endless, quick-fire content, Instagram is doing well in terms of audience growth. In early 2024, Instagram saw a year-on-year audience growth of over 25 percent, indicating that new users are still signing up to the service.Instagram users expect more varied types of content from the platform than simply picture-perfect shots, indicating that the social network may need to keep evolving to satisfy the needs of younger users.
