Instagram presents an incredible marketing opportunity for all business, in all stages of the conversion funnel. Most large to medium size businesses are already leveraging the power of Instagram ads through the Facebook platform, however, for many small businesses, it’s still an untapped source of advertising.
While many see cost of ad spend as a potential factor towards budgeting toward channels that may already be working, there are some very affordable strategies to drive traffic from Instagram to your website. Furthermore, as Facebook gets deeper into e-comm as they already have with shops and integrating product tagging and shopping direct from the platform, its as important as ever to start making a presence on the platform for your brand and e-comm business.
Let’s look at some instagram usage and stats that really tell a story of a great visibility channel for marketing.
INSTAGRAM USAGE AND STATISTICS:
- 1 billion monthly active users.
- 71% of the billion Instagram users are under the age of 35 (Statista, 2019).
- Over 500 million accounts use Instagram Stories every day (Instagram).
- One third of the most viewed Instagram stories are from businesses.
- 90% of accounts follow at least one business on Instagram.
- 71% of US businesses use Instagram. Seven out of 10 hashtags on Instagram are branded (Mention, 2018).
- Over 80% of Instagram users discover new products/services on the platform.
- After seeing a product/service on Instagram, 79% search for more information, 37% visit the retail store and 46% make a purchase.
- Instagram helps 80% of users make purchase decisions (Facebook, 2019).
- Instagram engagement increased by 29% for brands between October 2017 and May 2018 (Socialbakers, 2018).
- Brands can generate over 4 times more interactions on Instagram compared to Facebook.
We’ll go into strategies in another post. For now, start looking at what competitors are doing on Instagram. Need ideas and want to see what competitors are doing on the platform to draw inspiration? Check out: The Best Facebook & Instagram Tool To Spy On Your Competitors.
