Ig Study Quintly

9/13/2019 Instagram Study 2019 | quintly
Instagram
Study 2019
An in-depth report
by
Table of contents
Introduction
Growth rate
Post types used
Caption lengths
https://info.quintly.com/instagram-study-2019/view 1/24
Emojis
Hashtags
Weekdays
Introduction
This study analyzes the performance of Instagram
profiles between January 1st and June 30th, 2019. The
performance of over 34,100 profiles and more than 5.9
million posts were observed in this analysis.
The Instagram study provides detailed insights into the use of the platform.
In particular, it focuses its analysis on six different topics:
Follower development on Instagram

Usage of post types: Image, video or carousel
Instagram post length analysis
How hashtags were used
Hashtag usage analysis
Weekday and weekend comparison
To give you a better overview of our findings, and also to make it easier for
you to apply the findings to your own strategy, we clustered all the analyzed
profiles in six differently-sized groups:
Having a huge amount of followers on Instagram gives you direct information

about the popularity of an Instagram channel. To give you a clearer
understanding of the development of our profile groups, we decided to
analyze the follower growth for our six profile groups.
With a growth of 16% for profiles with 100k-1m followers and 15.9% for
profiles with 10k-100k followers those two profile groups were the most
successful in growing their audience.
The smallest analyzed group 01k followers) also has the lowest growth rate
9.4%. A reason for this result could be that it is harder than ever to naturally
grow the following of an account nowadays. Especially for smaller profiles
that don’t have the same kind of visibility as their bigger competitors
throughout the app.
68.2% of Instagram posts are single images

Instagram users have the agony of choice by having to pick from three
different post types: images, videos and carousels. Every post type has its
own unique way of telling a story and engages with their audience in a
different way.
So what was the most used post type of the analyzed profiles?
Images are still the post format primarily used on Instagram, representing
68% of all published posts. They are followed – at a distant second – by
video posts with a share of 18%. Carousel posts bring up the rear with just
14%.
Larger pro les are publishing more videos

Now it’s time to see how the different Instagram post types have been used
by our profile groups. As we’ve already seen, images are the most used post
type overall. But is it possible to detect a difference in posts types used
among the profile groups? Do smaller profiles post more images than larger
ones? Let’s find out.
What is interesting to see is that larger profiles posted more videos. Even
more so, the bigger a profile is in terms of followers, the more videos it
posted. So, whereas the biggest profiles had a share of 30%, the smallest
profile group had a share of just 10%.
An explanation for this may be that large profiles – who are mainly
influencers, celebrities or big brands – already have videos at hand or have
the budget to produce video content for their social channels. This could be
commercials, music videos, brand videos or other types of branded content.
This kind of content is easily reusable and often produced for just this
purpose, publishing it on as many channels as possible.
Now let’s take a look at which post type creates the highest interactions for
Instagram users Note: Interactions are defined as the sum of likes +
comments.
Splitting up the three formats, we immediately see that video posts receive
way more interactions than carousel or image posts. We compared each post
type with each other and got the following results:
In the next part of our study, we take a look at the length of Instagram posts.
We clustered the post length into five different buckets for this.
Is there a link between profile size and post length? And what could be the
explanations for it?
300 characters have been used in 35.8% of the analyzed posts and 30.8%
of all captions contained 150300 characters. Just 0.6% used no description
at all and only 6.6% used 150 characters. In short, there’s a visible trend to
publishing more descriptive posts.
This might be the case because brands and influencers use Instagram as
one of their main communication channels nowadays, and announce product
launches and partnerships within the app. Influencers also often treat
Instagram like their diary, letting their followers become part of their lives.
Instead of writing blog posts, many influencers now use Instagram instead
for that purpose.
Posts with 1-50 characters tend to receive more

interactions
Is it even necessary for influencers and celebrities, like Beyoncé or Cristiano

Ronaldo, to write a post description at all in order to receive a lot of
interactions? Do micro- or nano-influencers or small brands need to write
more to get their followers’ attention?
The answer to these two questions is yes and no. By looking at the average
interactions profiles with over 1m followers have received, it’s noticeable that
posts without captions tended to get more interactions.
All other profile groups had something in common, namely that posts with a
length of 150 characters seem to work best for them. The smallest group
01k) followers received almost the same number of interactions for posts
with a length of 150 and 300 characters.
We then split up the different profile groups and analyzed their interactions
in correlation with the post length to give you more detailed insights for two
selected groups.
1m - 10m followers
This group received the highest number of interactions on average on posts

that didn’t have a caption at all. We also see that the longer the caption was,
the less engagement they received.
1k - 10k followers
The best way to find out which post length works best for you is by testing
and analyzing different post lengths. This is the most accurate way to
discover what benefits your account and what your followers react to.
Are you interested in getting more detailed information on the results for
another specific profile size? Just write us an email - we are always happy to
help!
Emojis are the heart of social media communication. You don’t only find them
in chats with your friends; they’re also used by businesses and influencers.
But do they actually lead to more interactions or are they just a nice visual
effect?
Analyzing the usage of emojis, we found out that 52.3% of all posts didn’t
include emojis at all.
Posts that include 13 emojis represent the second-biggest share with
38.2%. Only 8.7% of all analyzed posts contained 410 emojis, and in just
0.9% of the posts more than 10 emojis were used.
That said, more than 90% of all analyzed posts either contain no emojis at all
or just 13 emojis.
No emojis can mean lower interactions

We learned that the majority of posts include either 0 or 13 emojis. But is
low emoji usage the right choice? Could more interactions be achieved by
including more emojis in a post? Spoiler alert: emojis can have a positive
effect on your posts as they often go along with more interactions.
The analysis shows that regardless of whether an Instagram account is small

or big, posts that don’t include any emojis receive the lowest interactions.
Splitting up two selected profile groups and analyzing their interactions in

correlation with the number of emojis we got the following results:
0 - 1k followers
For this group, using 10 or more emojis in posts, attracts the most
interactions. Using no emojis results in the least amount of interactions. The
higher the number of emojis used, the higher the amount of interactions.
10k - 100k followers
In this group, posts that included 410 emojis received the highest
interactions on average. Posts that included 13 or more than 10 emojis are
not far behind, though, with a fair share of interactions observed.
Including emojis in your posts should generally benefit you, based on the
data. Play around with a different amount of emojis in your posts, observe
and analyze what works well for your account. If you’d like to get detailed
results for other profile groups, just let us know by sending us an email.
The next part of our study examines the usage of hashtags. How many
hashtags were used overall in posts and how many of them can lead to more
interactions? We grouped the number of hashtags into four different buckets
for this, and found the following results:
35.2% of all posts contained 13 hashtags, which is also the biggest share in
this particular analysis. 28.7% of the posts didn’t include any hashtags and
410 hashtags were used in 23.1% of the posts. 10 and more hashtags were
found in 12.9% of all analyzed posts.
The profile group with the smallest amount of followers 01k followers) is
the one that used the highest number of hashtags in their posts. 30% of all
posts in this group contained 410 hashtags.
In comparison, posts in the biggest profile group 10m+ followers) contained

much fewer hashtags: 37% of all posts were published without hashtags and
47% of the posts included 13 hashtags.
Fewer hashtags, more interactions

Here are some further findings which can help you to identify the right
number of hashtags for your profile size. This overview will be of benefit to
you, if you want to try out something new in your Instagram strategy.
Interestingly, larger profiles used 13 hashtags most often in their posts but
tended to get even more interactions when they didn’t use them at all. We
then split up the different profile groups again, dug a little deeper into the
data and analyzed their interactions in correlation with the amount of
hashtags used.
10m+ followers
This group received the highest engagement on posts without hashtags.

Interactions on posts using 13 and 410 hashtags are almost similar. They
received the lowest engagement on posts that included more than 10 emojis
- which actually make up just 2% of their posts.
0 - 1k followers
Profiles with the lowest number of followers were able to generate the
highest number of interactions when using more than 10 hashtags in their
posts. There is not a huge difference in the amount of interactions between
using no hashtags, 13 or 410 hashtags.
As it is harder for smaller profiles to be seen or to grow on Instagram, using a

lot of hashtags can be definitely helpful for this group – they can be found
more easily by other users.
Tip: Do your research and try to choose highly relevant hashtags, nothing
too generic.
Again, a good way to find out how many hashtags work best for you is by
testing and analyzing using different numbers of hashtags in your posts. Let
us know if you’d like more detailed information on another profile group –
we’re always happy to help.
When are you spending the most time on Instagram? Is it possible that you’re
more active and engaging on weekends than on weekdays? Let’s take a step
back and see when posts were actually published: looking at the average
posts per day, there’s a downwards trend to the number of posts on
weekends.
Despite the fact that more posts were published on weekdays, interactions
on Saturdays and Sundays are higher by 27.3% in comparison to the amount
of interactions weekday posts receive.
That's all for now! We hope you enjoyed the findings. Questions? Don't
hesitate to reach out!
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big impact for your business.
Get in touch today to track, benchmark and optimize your
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9/13/2019 Instagram Study 2019 | quintly

Post types used

Follower development on Instagram

Having a huge amount of followers on Instagram gives you direct information

68.2% of Instagram posts are single images

Larger pro les are publishing more videos

Posts with 1-50 characters tend to receive more

Is it even necessary for influencers and celebrities, like Beyoncé or Cristiano

This group received the highest number of interactions on average on posts

No emojis can mean lower interactions

The analysis shows that regardless of whether an Instagram account is small

Splitting up two selected profile groups and analyzing their interactions in

10k - 100k followers

In comparison, posts in the biggest profile group 10m+ followers) contained

Fewer hashtags, more interactions

This group received the highest engagement on posts without hashtags.

As it is harder for smaller profiles to be seen or to grow on Instagram, using a

Unlock insights through social data to drive

API & Integrations

↳ Social Media API

Instagram Stories Analytics

Snapchat Shows Analytics

Free Stats Portal

Social Media Studies

Copyright © 2018 quintly. All rights reserved. • Terms • Privacy • More...

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