Quintly Analysed 9 Million Instagram Posts; Here's What It Learned

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In a quest to learn more about how people use Instagram and best practices on the platform, quintly analysed over 44k Instagram Business profiles and nearly 9 million Instagram posts. Here is what it found.

With over 1 billion users across the globe, Instagram is used by people in so many different ways and with different goals. Social media analytics company quintly carried out a study in which it analysed the usage of Instagram by looking at the performance of 44,432 Instagram Business profiles and over 8.9 million posts between January 1 and September 30, 2018.

The study looked at things like follower development, post type performance, the length of posts, usage of hashtags and emojis, posting times, and more.

Here are the main findings:

Instagram Profiles Grew Up To 33% This Year

Overall growth for all analysed profiles in the study spans from 17% to 33% if it’s broken down into the different profile groups that Quintly analysed.

Videos on Instagram receive up to 21% more interactions. Despite the fact that users mainly post images.

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Videos Received Up To 21% More Interactions

While images are the most common post type on Instagram, how do they compare in terms of interactions (sum of likes and comments) to other post types like carousels, or videos? The short answer is that they pretty much can’t keep up.

Taking a look at the performance of each format is revealing:

31% Of Posts Had Lengthy Post Descriptions

It comes as a surprise that 31% of all Instagram posts analysed for the study have more than 300 characters in their description. This is strange if you think that Instagram is “all about browsing, getting visual inspiration and quick entertainment.” Is it? What are your thoughts on this?

31% of posts on Instagram have lengthy post descriptions despite the fact that posts with shorter descriptions fare better.

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Surprise? 1% of posts had absolutely no description at all. And guess what: Posts with shorter descriptions fared better.

1-3 Hashtags Were Used The Most

A mainstay of Instagram posting – and perhaps overdone rather often, hashtags on Instagram “are a vital way to easily find your posts.” Hashtags can help content stand out potentially, and become more visible. How many hashtags should one use?